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^ 


AUTHOR: 


WITTE,  LEOPOLD 


Tl  TLB: 


A  GLANCE  AT  THE 

ITALIAN  INQUISITION 

PL  A  CE: 

[LONDON] 

DA  IE: 

1885 


Master  Negative  # 


COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARIES 
PRESERVATION  DEPARTMENT 


di-^op.o6-JX 


BIBLIOGRAPHIC  MICROFORM  TARCFT 


Original  Material  as  Filmed  -  Existing  Bibliographic  Record 


[ 


933.1 
W783 


V/itte,  Leopold,  1836-1921.       ^^^^^      ^etts. 

A  glance  at  the  Italian  inquisition,  a  sketch 
of  Pietro  Carnesocchl.  his  trial  before  the  su- 
preme court  of  the  papal  inquisition  at  Kome. 
and  his  martyrdom  in  1566.  Translated  from  the 
German  of  Leopold  V/itte,  by  John  T.  Betts  . 
t London,   The  Religious  tract  society,  1885. 

2  p.    1.,    c9]-87  p.     front,        22«», 


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REDUCTION     RATIO:__LZA 


DATE     FILMED: l^-v^r^^Jic INITIALS t^Z 

HLMEDBY:    RESEARCH  PUBLICATIONS.  INC  WOODBRIDGE.  C:x 


Association  for  information  and  imago  Management 

1100  Wayne  Avenue,  Suite  1100 
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A  GLANCE 


AT  Tllli 


ITALIAN      INQUISITION. 


A  SKETCH  OF 


PIETRO     CARNESECCHI: 


HIS  TRIAL  BEFORE  THE  SUPREME  COURT  OF  THE 

PAPAL    LNQUISITION    AT    ROME,     ANP    HIS 

MARTYRDOM    IN     1 566. 


Translated  from  the  German  of  Leopold  Witte 


liV 


JOHN     T.-  BETTS. 


'  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them. ' 


^,.ViV^ 

THE     R  E  L  I  G  i  O  U  5     T  R  A  C  t     SOCIETY 

56  Paternoster  Rgnv,  and  6;  St.  Paul's  Ciiurciiyard. 


1885. 


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*  However  seldom  the  Tribunal  of  the  Roman  Inquisition 
has  been  induced  to  reveal  its  secrets  to  anyone,  however 
powerful  he  might  be,  and  even  then  but  restrictedly,  never- 
theless, there  are  instances  of  processes  having  been  sent  to 
Foreign  Courts.  Paul  IV.,  most  jealous  of  those  secrets, 
when  he  sent  his  nephew,  Cardinal  Caraffa,  to  Philip  of  Spain, 
sent  with  him  in  his  suite  Girolamo  of  Nichisola,  a  Dominican 
monk,  fully  informed  of  the  process  instituted  by  that  Pontiff 
against  Cardinal  Pole,  and  gave  orders  that  a  copy  of  that 
process  should  be  handed  to  them  in  order  that  the  Cardinal 
should  show  it  to  the  King  and  to  his  ministers,  a  thing  quite 
unusual  'ivith  the  venerated  decrees  of  the  Holy  Office,  but  so 
decreed  by  the  Pope  that  it  should  be  seen  that  he  did  not  proceed 
ii^ainst  that  personage  under  passionate  impulse. 

*  These  words  in  Italics  are  found  in  Bartholomeo  Carrara's 
Life  of  Pope  Paul  I V .  Carrara  is  styled  by  Padre  Lagomarsini 
eruditus  ac  diligens  historicus,  in  a  note  on  page  26  of  Vol.  I. 
delle  Letter e  Poggiane.'' — See  Preface  to  the  *  Extract  from  the 
Record  of  the  Proceedings  against  Pietro  Camesecchi,' 
addressed  by  Count  Manzoni  di  Lugo  to  the  Reale  Depu- 
tazione  di  Storia  Patria  Italiana. 


•   •    •  • 

•  •    •    •• •  • 

•  •  •   •  •     •  • 

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•  •     • 

•  •     • 

•  •     • 

•  •  • 


•  •  • 


•  •  • 


•  •  «    • 

•  •  .  . . 


•  ••••• 


•  * 


.  *  •  • 
» •  •  • 

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«  ♦ 

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I 


V 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 


INTRODUCTORY 


PAGE 

9 


CHAPTER  II. 

CARNESECCIIl'S  YOUTH  AND  EARLY  LIFE  AT  ROME      16 


CHAPTER  III. 

INFLUENCE  OF  JUAN  DE  VALDfs  . 

CHAPTER  IV. 

LIFE  IN   FLORENCE,  VENICE,  AND   PARIS    . 

CHAPTER  V. 

ACCESSION   OF   PAUL  IV.        . 

CHAPTER  VI. 

PERSECUTION   UNDER   PAUL  IV. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

REVERSAL  OF  THE   FIRST  SENTENCE 

CHAPTER  VIII. 


.   25 


40 


.   51 


.  58 


.  67 


THE  FINAL  TRIAL,  ARTICLES  OF  CONDEMNATION, 
THE  SENTENCE,  AND  MARTYRDOM  OF  CARNE- 
SECCIII     ...... 


76 


A  GLANCE 


AT    THE 


ITALIAN     INQUISITION. 


CHAPTER    L 


■      I 


INTRODUCTORY. 

A  HISTORY  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition  was  written* 
in  the   year    1817   by  the  Spaniard,   Don   Juan 
Antonio  Llorente.     First    as  advocate,    then   as 
priest,  he  attained  high  position  in  both  careers. 
He  occupied   himself  in   clearing  up   what   had 
transpired  in  the  preceding  century,  and  his  task, 
one   imposed   by  the  French  Government,  then 
dominant,  was  a  commission  to  investigate   the 
archives  of  the  Inquisition.     When  Joseph  Bona- 
parte lost  paramount  rule  in  Spain,  and  after  the 
restoration  of  F'erdinand  VII.,  bringing  in  as  it 
did  absolute  government,  the  Spanish  Inquisition 
was  again   re-established,  and  Llorente  incurred,. 
as  did  other  Liberals,  sentence  of  exile.     He  went 
to  Paris,  where,  filled  with  deadly  enmity  to  the 
Papacy,  he  wrote  the  book  which,  by  the  publica- 
tion of  important  documents,  became  of  permanent 
interest   for  the  attainment  of  the  knowledge  of 


lO 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


INTRODUCTORY, 


\l 


this,  the  darkest  page  in  the  history  of  reh'gious 
fanaticism.  Would  that  some  one  miaht  some 
day  be  able  to  write  the  history  of  the  Roman 
Inquisition  !  There  was  a  time  when  opportunity 
presented  itself  for  doing  so.  The  great  central- 
iser,  Napoleon  I.,  purposed  erecting  at  Paris  a 
central  depot  for  the  archives  of  Europe  ;  and 
toward  the  close  of  the  year  1809,  innumerable 
waggons  carried  the  records  and  archives  of  the 
German  Empire  and  of  other  countries  to  Paris. 
Even  Rome  was  compelled  to  reveal  her  secrets, 
and  from  the  27th  February,  1810,  up  to  the  year 
1 8 1 3,  the  most  secret  and  the  most  carefully  pre- 
served correspondence,  trials,  documents,  manu- 
scripts, &c.,  passed  from  Papal  control,  beyond  the 
Alps.  From  the  archives  of  the  Vatican  there 
went  no  less  than  45,818  volumes,  contained  in 
3,239  cases,  weighing  408,459  kilogrammes.^ 
Until  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  this 
immense  collection  remained  in  Paris,  but  science 
profited  little  thereby,  for  access  to  the  col- 
lection was  prohibited. 

Protected  by  Prussian  Grenadiers,  and  after  the 
fall  of  the  Usurper,  the  pictures  which  had  been 
stolen  from  Florence,  and  pre-eminently  the  Vision 
of  Ezekiel,  that  jewel  of  Raphael's  most  brilliant 

'  According  to  Benrath,  Upon  the  Romish  Archives  in  Trinity 
College  Library,  Dublin,  contained  in  Von  Sybel's  Historic 
Periodica!,  1879,  p.  254. 


\ 


period,  were  taken  down  from  the  walls  of  the 
Louvre,  and  carried  back  in  triumph.^  Thus  the 
victory  of  the  Allies  brought  about  likewise  the 
restoration  of  the  Romish  archives  to  the  Curia. 
By  the  month  of  July,  181 7,  Louis  XVIIL  had 
again  delivered  up  to  Pius  VI L  the  invaluable 
sources  of  secret  Papal  history. 

In  the  meanwhile,  however,  all  had 'not  been 
restored.  After  the  Curia  itself,  by  repeated 
reclamations,  had  obtained  further  deliveries,  in  the 
year  1846  Papal  documents  suddenly  turned  up 
in  Paris,  which  were  offered  by  a  private  indi- 
vidual for  sale  to  the  British  Museum  ;  but  the 
price  he  fixed  upon  them  was  held  to  be  too  high. 
However,  the  late  Duke  of  Manchester  bought 
them  for  ;^6oo,  and  then  brought  them  to  London  ; 
subsequently  he  took  them  over  to  Ireland.  There 
they  were  investigated  by  a  clergyman  of  the  Irish 
Established  Church,  the  Rev.  Richard  Gibbings, 
who  three  times  consecutively,  in  1852,  1853, 
and  1856,  astonished  the  world  with  publications 
from  the  original  MSS.  of  the  Roman  Inquisi- 
tion, which  in  themselves  undoubtedly  bore  the 
stamp  of  authenticity. 

The  first  intimation  given  by  Mr.  Gibbings  as  to 
the  source  whence  his  originals  came  was  in  the 
third  publication,  entitled:  Report  of  t/ie  Trial  and 

*  Alfred  Von  Reumont,  Contribution  to  Italian  History^ 
1853.  Vol.  ii.,  p.  282. 


u 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


MaHyrdoni  of  Pietro  Carnesecchi,  sometime  Secre- 
tary to  Pope  Clement  VI I. y  and  Apostolic  Proto- 
710 1 a  ry.  Tra  nsc  ri bed  from  the  o  rigina  I  MS,  The 
Duke  of  Manchester  determined  to  dispose  of 
the  records,  and  he  sold  them  for  ;^500  to  the 
Rev.  Richard  Gibbings,  D.D. — an  outlay  which 
possibly  trenched  upon  the  latter's  means.  They 
were  again  offered  for  sale  to  the  authorities  of 
Trinity  College,  but  were  finally  purchased  by 
the  Vice-Provost,  Dr.  Wall,  and  by  him  presented 
to  Trinity  College  Library,  Dublin. 

A  German  scholar,  Professor  Karl  Benrath,  of 
Bonn,  who  had  occupied  himself  for  years  with 
the  history  of  the  Italian  Reformation,  found  these 
valuable  records  to  be,  in  the  year  1876,  in  a  per- 
fectly disordered  state,  and  by  way  of  recognition 
of  the  friendly  reception  given  him  by  the  Libra- 
rian, he  put  the  fifty-seven  bound  volumes  and  the 
twelve  unbound  ones  into  classified  order.  Four- 
teen of  the  comprehensive  volumes  of  the  collection 
contain  original  Records  of  the  Romish  Inquisition^ 
comprising  as  they  do  the  final  judgments  of  the 
Inquisition  in  the  trials  of  Italian  heretics,  which 
were  given  between  the  i6th  December,  1564, 
and  the  year  1659,  with,  however,  some  intervals. 
The  above-mentioned  publication  by  Gibbings 
upon  Carnesecchi  is  an  instance  of  a  final  judgment 
extracted  by  the  publisher  of  these  documents,  in 
relation   to   which   Professor  Benrath  judiciously 


INTRODUCTORY. 


13 


presumed   that   they   are   the   remains   of  Papal 
Records  left  in  Paris  in  the  year  18 17. 

It  would,  indeed,  be  impracticable  to  write  a 
continuous    history    of    the    Romish    Inquisition, 
takine  it  from    these    Dublin   Records.      In  the 
meanwhile,    however,    they    comprise    extremely 
important  materials,   throwing  a  clear  light  upon 
the  reaction  to  the  Reformation,  just  when  it  was 
in   its  fullest  activity.      It  is  possible  that  other 
important  material  may  come  to  hand — as  in  this 
instance,  which  was  not  only  a  record  of  some 
twenty  printed  pages,  as  described  by  Mr.  Gibbings, 
in  the  final  judgment  of  Carnesecchi's  process — 
but  is  also  a  detailed  extract  of  the  whole  conduct 
of  the  trial. 

Count  Giacomo  Manzoni  of  Lugo  had  the  good 
fortune,  in  the  year  i860,  to  be  able  to  purchase  a 
great  portion  of  the  archives  of  the  Dandini  family 
throueh  the  bookseller,  Guidi,  of  Bologna.     The 
Dandini   family  was    one  whence   issued  several 
distinguished  prelates,  even  during  the  time  of  the 
Reformation.     This  collection  likewise  contained 
important  documents  upon  the  Reformation  move- 
ment  in  Italy  during  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
upon  the  most  distinguished  persons  engaged  in 
it — Flaminio,  Cardinal  Pole,  Donato  Rullo,  Luigi 
Priuli,   Vittoria    Colonna,    Cardinal   Morone,  and 
others.     Manzoni,  in  order  to  show  what  may  be 
expected  from  these  archives  for  learning  and  the 


u 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


Church,  has  given  a  specimen,  selected  from  his 
rich  store,  of  a  process,  which  he  printed  at  Turin 
in  1870,  in  a  vokime  which  appeared  in  the  'Mis- 
cellanea of  patriotic  Italian  history/  This  process 
was  entitled, ' Extract  of  Pidro  CarnesecchV s  Trials 
which  will^  in  many  respects,  be  probably  found 
to  be  the  most  interesting  aiid  the  fnost  iyistructivc 
of  all  the  Records  of  the  Inqidsitiofi.' 

Manzoni  presumes  that  his  documents  are  the 
contemporary  copy  of  an  extract  from  the  papers 
of  that  trial,  which  the  Romish  Court  itself  sent  by 
the  hand  of  its  Nuncio  at  Paris,  Cardinal  Girolamo 
Dandini,  to  Queen  Catherine  de'  Medici,  she  being 
Queen  of  France,  and  Carnesecchi's  patroness. 
Carnesecchi  himself  spent  several  years  in  Paris 
subsequently  to  the  year  1547.  Catherine  retained 
her  friendly  feeling  for  her  nephew  Cosimo's 
favourite  ;  Cosimo  being  Duke  of  Florence. 

This  process  brings  before  us  the  proceedings 
of  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  in  the  most 
definite  and  clear  manner.  We  shall  in  the  follow- 
ing pages  have  an  opportunity  of  witnessing  the 
tactics  of  the  Inquisitors  in  detail.  But  the  record 
assumes  great  importance,  for  Carnesecchi  by  no 
means  belonged  to  the  most  radical  representatives 
of  Reformation  principles,  but  strove  throughout  to 
retain  his  connection  with  the  Romish  Church. 
The  thirty-four  articles  of  accusation,  upon  which 
sentence  of  death  was  passed  on  the  former  Papal 


INTRODUCTORY, 


IS 


Protonotary,  are  partly  composed  of  the  simplest 
Christian  axioms,  embodied  in  quotations  from  the 
Scriptures.  They  nowhere  express  extreme  views^ 
such  as  those  of  which  certain  anti-Catholic  Italians 
of  that  period  made  themselves  the  representatives. 
Were  we  to  remember  how  little  of  unadulterated 
Bible  truth  the  Papal  Church  can  tolerate,  we 
should  then  feel  thankful  that  our  Evanofelical 
Confession  has  reached  its  present  position  of 
influence,  and  there  is  nothing  more  calculated  to 
make  us  do  so  than  the  contemplation  of  the 
eventful  fate  of  a  man  like  Carnesecchi.  In  our 
statement  we  shall  often  need  to  let  the  Romish 
Church  but  speak  officially,  and  we  shall  then  be 
furnished  with  the  keenest  weapon  of  Protestant 
polemics.  Roma  locnta  est,  'Rome  has  spoken.' 
She  has  done  so  here,  and  has  spoken  her  own 
condemnation.  It  were  idle  and  injurious  for  us 
to  add  anything  thereto. 

Now  let  us  learn  to  know   Carnesecchi  more 
intimately. 


CHAPTER  II. 

CARNESECCHl's  YOUTH  AND  EARLY  LIFE  AT  ROME. 

Dante's  native  city,  where  scholars  and  artists 
<:ongregated  under  the  intellectual  guidance  of  the 
Medici,  was  the  place  where  Pietro  Carnesecchi 
was  born.  His  ancestors  had  long  occupied  an 
honourable  position  among  the  leading  families 
of  the  Florentine  Republic.  Carlo  Carnesecchi 
was  one  of  the  three  distinguished  citizens 
whose  deaths  the  inflexible  Dominican,  Girolamo 
Savonarola,  foretold,  in  the  month  of  April,  1492, 
he  being  then  in  the  vestry  of  St.  Mark's ; 
together  with  their  deaths  he  foretold  those  of 
Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  of  Pope  Innocent  VIII., 
and  of  the  King  of  Naples.^  One  Pier  Antonio 
Carnesecchi  figures  in  the  year  1507  as  Govern- 
ment Commissary  to  the  Republic,  acting  in  the 
district  of  the  Maremma ;  and  the  terms  of  auto- 
graph letters  addressed  to  him  by  Macchiavelli, 
upon  the  part  of  the  Florentine  Council  of  Ten, 
witness  the  confidence  which  the  Florentines 
attached  to  Pier  Antonio's  foresight  and  sagacity.^ 

'  Pasquale  Villari,  On  Girolamo  Savonarola^  translated  into 
German  by  Von  Berduschek.   Leipzig,  186S.  I.S.  iii. 

-  Pasq.  Villari.  On  Niccolo  Macchiavelli,  Florence,  1877.  Vol.  i., 
pp.  492,  617,  621. 


^1 


t! 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  ROME, 


17 


The  details  connected  with  Pietro's  birth  are 
unknown,  but  it  must  have  been  in  the  first  decade 
of  the  sixteenth  century  that  he  first  saw  the  light, 
for  Camerarius,  Melancthon's  friend,  in  his  eulogy  of 
Carnesecchi  reports,  *  We  know  nothing  definitely 
as  to  his  age,  nevertheless  at  his  death,  which  was 
on  the  3rd  of  October,  1567,  he  cannot  have  been 
less  than  58  years  of  age.* 

That  Pietro  had  the  advantage  of  a  careful 
education,  and  that,  living  amidst  the  newly 
awakened  classical  studies,  no  branch  of  classical 
development  was  alien  to  him,  is  to  be  presumed 
from  the  importance  of  the  Carnesecchi  family^ 
and  from  his  own  position  in  Florence,  in  addition 
to  the  evidence  furnished  by  his  posthumous  letters 
and  papers.  Amongst  his  masters,  Francisco 
Robertello  is  mentioned,  who  taught  Greek  and 
Greek  literature  in  several  Italian  cities,  his 
teaching  of  that  then  recently  revived  language 
having  been  successful ;  whilst  it  is  reported  that 
the  pupil — still  a  youth — outstripped  his  master 
in  facility  of  expression,  both  in  eloquence  and  in 
composition. 

Pietro  as  a  youth  was  most  intimate  with  the 
Medici  family.  The  Carnesecchis  attached  them- 
selves to  the  fortunes  of  the  Medici,  both  pros- 
perous and  adverse.  They  did  so  in  1494,  when 
the  Medici  were  for  the  first  time  expelled  ;  they 
did  so  in  1 5 1 2,  after  a  successful  counter-revolution 

B 


=^Pr 


i8 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


in  Florence,  which  issued  in  their  recall.     The  lad 
was  Catherine's  playfellow,  she  being  of  the  elder 
branch  of  the  family,  as  he  also  was  of  Cosimo, 
who  subsequently  figured  in  the  Grand-Ducal  line. 
Catherine   and  Cosimo    were  both   born    in   the 
year  15 19.     No  one  of  the  three  ever  dreamt  that 
Carnesecchi,  the   friend,   would  be   disgracefully 
betrayed  by  Cosimo,  and   that  Catherine  would 
be    instrumental    in   the  instruction    of  posterity 
as  to  the  incidents  connected  with  Carnesecchi's 

fate. 

Another  and  somewhat  elder  member  of  the 
Medici  family  who  assisted  Pietro,  by  becoming 
his  patron,  was  Giuliano,  the  illegitimate  son  of 
Giulio,  the  younger  brother  of  Lorenzo  the  Magni- 
ficent. He  became  a  Churchman,  and  was  made 
a  Cardinal  by  his  cousin,  Pope  Leo  X.,  after  whose 
death,  in  1 521,  he  became  a  candidate  for  Peter's 
chair,  a  position  which  he  actually  attained  on 
the  19th  November,  1523,  assuming  the  title  of 

Clement  VI L 

Pietro  Carnesecchi  likewise  took  orders  whilst  in 
Florence.  In  the  final  judgment  of  his  process  he 
is  styled  a  Florentine  clergyman.  Whilst  but  a 
youth — we  cannot  accurately  indicate  the  year — 
his  friend  Clement  VII.,  elevated  to  the  highest 
dignity  in  Christendom,  summoned  him  to  his 
Court  at  Rome.  The  most  honourable  reception 
awaited  him  there.    Such  men  as  Cardinal  Bembo, 


M 


•  " 


EARL  V  LIFE  A  T  ROME. 


19 


the  last  representative  of  a  period  of  civilization 
then  fast  fading  away,  the  creator  of  the  Italian 
grammar  and  the  unrivalled  master  of  Latin  com- 
position ;  as  Cardinal  Sadoleto,  who  combined 
Bembo's  erudition  with  the  piety  of  a  really  prin- 
cely prelate  ;  as  the  poet  Marc'  Antonio  Flaminio ; 
as  Antonio  Brucioli,  the  then  recent  tran- 
slator of  the  Bible  into  Italian,  who,  like  Carne- 
secchi, was  by  birth  a  Florentine  ;  with  other  men 
distinguished  by  intellect  and  by  position,  at  whose 
head  was  Caspar  Contarini,  the  Venetian,  then  a 
layman  and  ambassador,  representing  his  Republic 
at  the  Papal  Court,  and,  like  the  majority  of  those 
who  were  called  'Members  of  the  Oratory  of 
Divine  Love,'  was  one  of  the  union  of  clergymen 
and  laymen,  who  met  even  in  the  days  of  Adrian 
VI.,  to  promote  the  inward  renovation  and 
animation  of  the  Church — all  these  came  to  meet 
the  handsome  and  intelligent  young  Florentine, 
whose  moral  purity  and  exalted  spirit  were  written 
upon  his  brow,  with  benevolent,  friendly,  and 
respectful  feelings.  Sadoleto  praised  him  as  a 
young  man  distinguished  by  good  qualities  and 
brilliant  talents,  Bembo  spoke  of  him  in  terms  of 
the  highest  respect  and  affection,  and  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  the  Florentine  goldsmith,  thanked  him  for 
his   intercession,   whereby   he   re-acquired  Papal 


grace.' 


/ 


'  Goethe's  Works,  Vol.  xxviii.  Bk.  ii.,  Cap.  2. 


TO 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI, 


EARL  V  LIFE  A  T  ROME, 


21 


Clement  VII.  heaped  proofs  of  his  supreme 
good-will  upon  his  favourite.  He  made  him  his 
secretary,  he  honoured  him  with  the  title  of  Papal 
Protonotary,  he  presented  to  him  two  Abbeys 
with  all  their  revenues,  one  being  in  France,  the 
other  in  the  kingdom  of  Naples,  at  Eboli,  near 
Salerno,  and  he  granted  to  his  intelligent  counsellor 
in  the  many  storms  which  he  encountered  during 
his  rule  over  the  States  of  the  Church,  many 
of  them  being  directed  against  his  own  person^ 
such  widespread  influence  that  it  was  commonly 
reported  that  '  the  Church  was  more  controlled  by 
Carnesecchi  than  by  Clement.'  In  his  indictment 
it  was  expressly  alleged  against  Carnesecchi,  that 
although  he  was  brought  up  at  this  Court  of 
Rome,  and  had  been  most  liberally  endowed  with 
dignities,  ecclesiastical  benefices  and  revenues,  that 
nevertheless,  despising  the  authority  of  the  Holy 
Roman  and  Apostolic  Church,  he  had  fallen  into 
divers  heresies. 

Notwithstanding  his  youth,  and  his  being  so 
manifestly  favoured,  he  nevertheless  succeeded, 
amidst  the  innumerable  intrigues  prompted  by 
hatred  and  envy,  to  preserve  himself  uninjured 
and  unprejudiced  ;  nay,  he,  by  modesty  and  intelli- 
gent consideration,  acquired  the  general  affection 
of  both  high  and  low,  and  this  was  not  withdrawn 
from  him  even  after  the  death  of  his  patron,  which 
occurred  on  the  26th  September,  1534. 


^ 


Whilst  Clement  filled  the  Papal  Chair,  Car- 
nesecchi formed  the  personal  acquaintance  of  those 
individuals  whose  mental  influence  subsequently 
gave  the  decisive  tone  to  his  life. 

Throughout  the  Lent  of  the  year  1534,  there 
was  a  Capuchin  monk,  Fra  Bernardino  Ochino 
of  Sienna,  who  preached  the  Lent  sermons  in 
Rome,  in  the  church  of  San  Lorenzo  in  Damaso. 
He  had  recently  left  a  less  austere  Franciscan 
Order  of  the  Observants  to  join  this  the  most 
austere,  and  therefore  that  which,  upon  the  part 
of  ecclesiastical  superiors,  was  the  least  approved 
branch  of  the  congregation.  Carnesecchi  heard 
him  preach,  he  learned  to  know  him  personally,  and 
he  visited  him  twice  or  thrice.  The  troubles  which 
befell  the  Capuchin  Order,  and  with  it  Ochino,  just 
as  that  Order  attained  the  sixth  year  of  its  existence, 
doubtless  affected  Carnesecchi  greatly.  The  more 
lax  Franciscans  won  over  certain  cardinals  to  their 
side,  in  order  to  bring  about,  by  Papal  decree,  the 
dissolution  of  this  new  division  of  the  Order. 
Drawn  by  this  threatened  danger,  all  the  Capuchins, 
who  then  numbered  but  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
five,  were  assembled  at  Rome.  At  first,  by 
Clements  decree  of  April  25th,  they  were  only 
expelled  the  city ;  but  all  the  lower  classes  in 
Rome  took  part  with  them,  and  made  demonstra- 
tions on  their  behalf. 

Two  noble  women,  who  from  the  beginning  of 


22 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHl, 


EARLY  LIFE  AT  ROME, 


23 


the  foundation  of  the  Capuchin  Order  had  joyfully 
hailed  it  as  a  protest  against  the  worldliness  of 
the  cloister,  combined  their  influence  with  the 
movement.  Caterina  Cibo,  the  Dowager  Duchess 
of  Camerino,  the  Pope's  niece,  who  to  her  death 
was  a  warm  friend  of  Ochino,  was  one  of  them, 
whilst  the  other  was  the  celebrated  Vittoria 
Colonna,  the  widow  of  Ferrante  Pescara,  she 
being  at  that  time  at  Marino  on  a  visit  to  her 
relatives,  the  Colonna  family.  These  gentlewomen 
hurried  to  Rome,  and  so  wrought  upon  the  Pope 
that  he  withdrew  his  decree  of  expulsion.  Shortly 
after  that  Clement  died.  Vittoria  remained  in 
Rome,  and  there  Carnesecchi,  introduced  by 
Vittoria's  friend,  Cardinal  Palmieri,  made  her  ac- 
quaintance, and  kissed  her  hand  for  the  first  time. 
In  1 53 1,  at  Rome,  Carnesecchi  learnt  to  know 
the  Spanish  nobleman  Juan  de  Valdes,  the  spiritual 
founder,  and  subsequently  the  centre  of  the  Refor- 
mation movement  in  South  Italy,  but  at  that  time 
he  knew  him  only  as  *  a  noble  knight  by  grace  of 
the  Emperor,'  not  having  a  notion  that  Valdes 
had  '  that  nobler  knighthood  which  is  by  the  grace 
of  Christ.'  Carnesecchi  was  an  able  statesman, 
and  patronised  classical  scholarship ;  he  was  a 
conscientious  official,  and  performed  all  the  obliga- 
tions of  his  office ;  a  pious  man,  discharging  as 
a  Catholic  all  his  ecclesiastical  duties — but  the 
decisive    vital  question,    how    man    is    to    stand 


justified  before  God  }  had  never  as  yet  presented 
itself  to  him  as  a  vital  one,  and  hence  his  ear 
had  never  been  roused  to  hear  the  answer, 
which  in  relation  to  this  question  had  been  given 
loudly  enough  in  other  countries. 

Shortly  after  the  death  of  Clement  VII., 
Carnesecchi  left  Rome  and  wended  his  way  home 
to  Florence.  Here  he  was  once  more  brought  into 
contact  with  Ochino.  This  was  in  1536  or  1537. 
Ochino,  the  most  powerful  pulpit  orator  in  Italy 
since  the  days  of  Savonarola,  was  himself,  however, 
still  entangled  in  Roman  Catholic  doctrines.  He 
was  principally  indebted  for  his  extraordinary 
success  to  the  personal  sincerity  of  his  testimony, 
to  that  sympathy  and  love  for  his  hearers  which 
found  expression  in  his  sermons  ;  whilst  his  absolute 
avoidance  of  scholastic  disputations,  which  then 
absorbed  very  much  of  pulpit  orator}^  formed  that 
element  in  his  success  which  was  by  no  means  the 
least  important. 

It  was  Valdes'  influence  that  first  brought  Ochino 
to  the  clear  knowledge  of  the  way  of  salvation. 
Ochino's  testimony,  however,  was  already  a  signi- 
ficant advance,  of  which  many  gratefully  availed 
themselves.  Assembled  around  his  pulpit  in 
Florence  as  hearers  were  Carnesecchi,  the  Duchess 
of  Camerino,  Caterina  Cibo,  Giberto,  Bishop  of 
Verona,  Caraffa,  Bishop  of  Chieti,  afterwards 
Paul  IV.,  and  one  who  lived  under  the  same  roof 


24 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


I 


as  Carnesecchi — the  Englishman,  Reginald  Pole, 
who  had  just  received  the  Cardinal's  hat,  or  was 
just  about  receiving  it  from  the  Pope  as  a  recom- 
pense for  his  emphatic  defence  of  the  rights  of 
the  Papal  throne,  as  opposed  to  the  ecclesiastical 
caprices  of  Henry  VIII.  His  nomination  bears 
date  22nd  December,  1536. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  JUAN  VALDES  AT  NAPLES. 

In  the  summer  of  1538,  Carnesecchi  was  at  the 
baths  of  Lucca,  in  company  with  Vittoria  Colonna 
and  Cardinal  Pole.  In  1540  he  took  a  journey 
which  led  to  his  souPs  turning-point.  Pie  went  to 
Naples,  probably  for  the  purpose  of  being  nearer 
to  his  abbey  at  Eboli,  with  a  view,  when  necessary, 
to  control  matters  there. 

Juan  de  Vald<5s  had  several  years  previously 
settled  in  Naples,  being  a  member  of  the  Viceroy's, 
Don  Pedro  de  Toledo's,  suite,  but  not  his  secretary. 
Vald^s  must  have  been  in  every  respect  a  distin- 
guished personage.  He  was  the  twin  brother  of 
that  Alfonso  de  Valdfe  who  went  with  Charles  V., 
as  his  Imperial  Secretary,  to  the  Diet  at  Augsburg; 
there  he  had  varied  relations  with  Melancthon,  and 
translated  the  Augsburg  Confession  into  Spanish 
for  the  Emperor  and  his  Spaniards.  His  friend 
Erasmus  of  Rotterdam,  who  died  in  July,  1534, 
survived  Alfonso,  who  died  in  the  autumn  of  1532. 
His  brother  Juan  was  likewise  upon  intimate  terms 
with  Erasmus. 

Juan  penetrated  much  deeper  into  the  mysteries 
of  the    Holy  Scriptures  than   did  Alfonso,   and 


26 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


especially  into  the  Pauline  doctrine  of  the  justifi- 
cation of  the  sinner  by  faith.  In  Naples  he 
occupied  himself  with  philology,  he  studied  the 
writings  of  the  German  Reformers,  but  more  than 
them,  the  source  of  truth,  the  Bible  itself  In  it 
'  he  lived  and  moved  and  had  his  being,'  and  in 
intercourse  with  the  magnates  of  the  Viceregal 
Court  he  managed  by  a  quiet  testimony  to 
exert  a  religious  influence  which  worked  with 
irresistible  enchantment.  A  contemporary  styled 
him  a  missionary  to  the  aristocracy. 

That  which  absorbed  him  most  was  the  trans- 
lation and  exposition  of  Holy  Scripture.  He  trans- 
lated the  Psalms  from  the  Hebrew,  and  all  Paul's 
Epistles,  with  the  exception  of  that  to  the  Hebrews, 
from  the  Greek.  Carnesecchi,  however,  never 
heard  Vald^s  express  a  doubt  as  to  who  penned 
that  Epistle  ;  such  was  his  testimony  in  one  of 
his  later  examinations.  Valdes  wrote  profound 
expositions  upon  all  his  translations. 

His  personal  address,  however,  was  most 
effective ;  his  discourses,  whether  delivered  in 
Naples  or  in  the  neighbouring  island  of  Ischia — 
which  then  had  been  committed  by  Kino-  Federio-o 
of  Naples  to  the  family  of  Vittoria  Colonna's 
husband,  as  Governors  or  Castellanes — were 
always  delivered  in  the  presence  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguished, the  most  pious,  and  the  most  learned 
inhabitants  of  Naples.     There  was  the  foundation 


/AFFLUENCE  OF  JuAn  VALUES, 


27 


•     t 


laid  for  the  practical  Christian  treatises  of  which 
many  are  only  known  to  us  by  their  titles. 

Here  the  CX.  Divine  Considerations  may  have 
been  written,  of  which  the  Spanish  original  has 
been  lost,  except  thirty-nine  of  them,  recently  dis- 
covered in  the  Emperor  Maximilian's  papers  in 
the  Aulic  Library  at  Vienna.  An  Italian  edition 
of  them  was  printed  at  Basle  in  the  year  1550,  and 
they  were  republished  by  Dr.  Edward  Boehmer 
in  the  year  i860. 

Those  who  took  part  in  these  edifying  con- 
ferences could,  after  Valdes'  death,  but  look  back 
upon  them  with  regret.  ^  Would  to  God,'  said 
Bonfadio — one  who  had  attended  them — in  a  letter 
to  Carnesecchi,  'that  we  could  once  more  assemble 
in  Naples  as  we  formerly  did,  although  I,  indeed^ 
never  dare  cherish  the  wish,  now  that  Valdes  is 
dead.  This  has  truly  been  a  great  loss  to  us,  as  it 
has  been  to  all  the  world,  for  Valdes  was  one  of 
the  rare  men  of  Europe,  as  those  writings  which 
he  has  left  behind  him  testify.  He  was,  without 
doubt,  in  his  actions,  in  his  speech,  and  in  all  his 
conduct  a  perfect  man.  With  but  a  particle  of  his 
soul  he  governed  his  frail  and  spare  body ;  but 
with  the  noblest  part  of  him,  with  his  pure  under- 
standing,  as  though  out  of  the  body,  he  was  always 
absorbed  in  the  contemplation  of  truth.' 

And  what  names  the  men  bore  whom  we  find 
gathered  around  Valdes !  Marc'  Antonio  Flaminio> 


ll 


28 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


Carnesecchi  s  friend,  the  gentle-spirited  poet,  who 
spent  two  years  at  Naples  for  the  recovery  of  his 
health,  living  at  his  villa  near  Caserta,  who  devoted 
himself  to  Valdes,  as  did  his  friends  who  gathered 
there  around  him.  Flaminio  stands  a  repre- 
sentative of  the  thousands  in  Italy  who,  at  that 
time,  could  not  resolve  to  break  with  the  Papal 
Church,  notwithstanding  that  they  were  convinced 
•of  the  truth  of  Evangelical  doctrine.  There  was 
that  richly-endowed  and  distinguished  youth, 
Galeazzo  Caracciolo,  who  subsequently,  for  his 
faith's  sake,  severed  himself  from  his  wife  and 
-children,  and  fled  to  Switzerland,  having  been 
moved  to  do  so  by  the  testimonies  given  in  this 
blessed  circle.  Aonio  Paleario,  who  for  a  long- 
time  was  looked  upon  as  the  author  of  that  little 
book  which  figured  in  every  heretical  process  in 
Italy,  entitled  T/ie  Bencfa  of  C/irist,h^r^  strength- 
•ened  his  faith.  Peter  Martyr  Vermiglio,  the 
Florentine,  who  from  1530  was  the  Abbot  of  the 
Augustines  in  the  Monastery  of  St.  Peter  ad  Aram 
in  Naples,  here  learned  of  Valdes  the  right  inter- 
pretation of  the  Pauline  Epistles. 

Ochino,  already  in  1536  in  Naples,  and  after 
1539  as  General  of  his  Order,  was  upon  the  most 
intimate  terms  with  the  pious  Spaniard,  and  owed 
to  Valdes  much  of  the  marvellous  influence  which 
he  exerted  in  all  that  he  did.  He  frequently,  as 
Carnesecchi  reports  in  his  examination,  received 


INFLUENCE  OF  JUAN  VALDES. 


29. 


from  Valdes,  in  a  note  written  on  the  previous 
evening,  the  theme  upon  which  he  was  to  preacli 
his  sermon  on  the  ensuing  morning. 

And  what  a  bevy  of  noble  women  were  they 
who  illuminated  this  assembly  of  distinguished 
spirits !  one  of  whom  showed  Carnesecchi  the  way 
to  life  eternal.  We  first  mention  Vittoria  Colonna, 
of  whom  we  have  spoken,  as  having  fixed  her  resi- 
dence in  Ischia,  where  she,  about  this  time,  passed 
some  years,  living  in  the  castle  with  her  sister- 
in-law,  the  Duchess  of  Francavilla.  Still  crushed 
under  bereavement  in  the  loss  of  her  husband, 
whom  she  loved  passionately,  and  whom  she  in  her 
poems  frequently  styles  '  the  sun  of  her  life,*  she 
first  found  a  firm  stay  and  permanent  consolation 
in  the  proclamation  of  mercy,  of  which  she  first 
heard  in  Valdes'  circle  : — 


*  Now  is  the  Lord,  who  wisely  has  combined 
Two  natures  in  one  body,  become 
My  Sun  and  my  God.    I  shall  drink 
From  the  fountain,  that  true  Helicon 
For  healing  all  my  wounds.* 

Thus  does  she  sing,  and  thus  does  she  confess,, 
in  the  spirit  of  Valdes  : — 

*  Lord,  wrapped  in  the  mantle  of  Thy  grace, 
Do  I  bewail  my  guilt,  and,  disburdened  of  all  works^ 
The  sacred  shield  of  faith  alone  protects  me.* 

Associated  with  Vittoria  was   Donna  Isabella 
Brisegna ;  she  was  the  sister  of  the  Cardinal  and 


30 


PJETRO  CAR^ESECCHI. 


Supreme  Inquisitor  for  Spain,  Alfonso  Manriquez 
de  Lara.  Isabella,  when  the  storm  broke  forth  in 
Italy  against  the  Evangelicals,  fled  to  Switzerland, 
and  settled  at  Chiavenna,  in  the  Orisons,  where 
she  lived  modestly  and  quietly,  confessing  Christ, 
pensioned  by  Giulia  Gonzaga  with  a  hundred 
dollars  a  year. 

From  the  intimations  furnished  in  Carnesecchi's 
process,   we  learn  that  this  tribute  of  love  was 
faithfully  and  regularly  paid   by    Giulia,  a  near 
relative  of  Vittoria's,  who,  like  herself,  was  only 
saved  by  death  from  the  persecutions  of  the  Inqui- 
sition.    Donna  Giulia  Gonzaga,  the  Duchess  of 
Trajetto,  was  the  widow  of  Vespasian  Colonna, 
Vittoria's  cousin.     She  was  held  to  be  the  most 
beautiful  woman  in  Italy,  and  even  after  retirement, 
in  the  profoundest  seclusion  of  widowhood,  and 
when   living  in  the  castle  over  her  own  town  of 
Fondi,    in  the  year   1534,    the    Sultan    Soliman 
attempted  to  lay  hands  on  her.     His  corsairs,  led 
on  by  Chaireddin  Barbarossa,  assailed  Fondi,  and 
it  was  with  the  greatest  difficulty  that  the  terrified 
Duchess  hurriedly  escaped.     Litigation  with  her 
husband's  family  constrained  her  to  live  at  Naples, 
whilst   her    tender   susceptible    heart  had    been 
agonized  by  other  painful  experiences  ;  and  it  was 
under  such  emotions  that   she    first   joined    the 
Valdes'  circle. 

An  awe-inspiring  sermon  of  Ochino's,  preached 


INFLUENCE  OF  JUAN  VALDES, 


31 


during  Lent  of  1536,  stripped  her  of  her  last  shred 
of  trust  in  her  own  good  works  and  in  her 
personal  holiness — a  trust  which  had  been  but  a 
tottering  one  previously.  On  her  way  home  from 
the  sermon,  she,  having  previously  placed  her 
confidence  in  Valdes,  now  poured  forth  to  him  her 
burdened  heart;  and  he,  like  a  wise  lay-pastor, 
took  this  disturbed  spirit  m  charge.  He  stayed 
with  her  until  the  night  was  far  advanced,  and 
directed  her  with  all  due  earnestness  to  the  Lord, 
to  seek  His  grace,  going  on  from  repentance  to 
faith.  Giulia  entreated  him  to  reduce  this  night  s 
conversation  into  writing ;  and  we  still  possess  it, 
as  it  appeared  in  Venice,  in  Italian,  in  1546.  It 
enables  us  to  appreciate  the  soul-nursing  wisdom 
of  the  man,  whilst  the  name  which  he  modestly 
assigned  it  was  The  Christian  Alphabet ;  that 
which  but  teaches  the  elements  of  Christian  per- 
fection, which,  when  they  have  been  appropriated, 
the  book  is  to  be  laid  aside,  in  order  that  the 
mind  may  be  raised  to  higher  considerations. 

The  alarm  which  Ochino's  sermon  wrought  in 
Giulia,  represents  the  terrors  which  the  demands 
of  the  law  impose  upon  the  conscience.  These 
are  not  to  be  allayed  by  any  vows  or  cloistral 
works  (Giulia  was  lodged  in  the  Franciscan  Con- 
vent). Faith  is  indispensable.  Clearing  this  up, 
he  added,  ^When  I  say  faith,  I  do  not  thereby 
mean  the  faith  which  believes  in  the  history  of 


/I 


i 


32 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHf. 


Christ ;  for  that  can,  and  does,  exist  without  love  ; 
whence  St  James  calls  it  ''  dead  faith  ;  "  for  false 
Christians  and  the  devils  in  hell  possess  that ;  but 
when  I  speak  of  faith,  I  mean  that  which  lives  in 
the  soul,  not  attained  by  human  exertion  and  tact, 
but  by  means  of  the  grace  of  God,  by  supernatural 
lio-ht,  a  faith  which  embraces  all  God's  Word,  His 
threats  no  less  than  His  promises  ;  so  that  he,  when 
he  hears  that  Christ  said  :  ''  He  who  believes  and 
is  baptized  shall  be  saved  ;  but  that  he  who  does 
not  believe  shall  be  damned  ; "  his  faith  in  these 
words,  which  he  fully  holds,  inspires  such  confi- 
dence, that  he  has  not  the  slightest  doubt   about 

his  salvation/ 

When    Giulia  thereupon  replied  that  no  man 
should  outdo  her  in  faith,  he  exhorted  her  to  self- 
knowledge.     ^  For/    said  he,  '  should  some    one 
ask  you  whether  you  believe  in  the  Creed,  in  every 
article  of  it,  the  one  as  much  as  the  other,  you  say 
you  do.     But  if,  when  in  the  act  of  confession 
you  be  suddenly  asked  whether  you  believe  that 
God  has  forgiven  you  your  sins,  you  will  reply, 
that    you     think    so,     but     that    you    are     not 
sure.     Now  know  that  this  uncertainty  is  due  to 
want  of  faith.     Now  accept  Christ's  words  fully 
which   He  said  to  the   Apostles,  '^Whatever  you 
shall  bind  on  earth  shall  be  bound  in  heaven,  and 
all  that  you  shall  loose  on  earth  shall  be  loosed 
in  heaven  ;  "  and  if  you  thoroughly  believe  what 


r. 


INFLUENCE  OF  JuAn  VALUES. 


33 


you  confess  in  the  Creed,  when  you  say,  *^  I  believe 
in  the  forgiveness  of  sins,"  you  will,  whilst  you  feel 
pained  in  the  soul  that  you  should  have  insulted 
God,  be  able  unhesitatingly  to  say  that  God  has 
forgiven  you  all  your  sins/ 

These  are  utterances  worthy  of  Luther,  and 
they  penetrated  Giulia's  soul  with  vivifying  power. 
The  Duchess  associated  herself  most  thankfully 
with  Valdes,  and  there  was  no  member  of  his 
circle  who  understood  him  as  she  did.  He 
dedicated  his  translations  and  expositions  of  the 
Psalms,  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  and  of  the 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  to  her. 

Into  this  society,  absorbed  as  it  was  in  subjects 
of  the  most  vital  interest,  did  Carnesecchi  enter, 
when  he  emigrated  to  Naples  in  the  year  1540. 
The  majority  of  them  were  already  personally 
known  to  him.  His  friend  Flaminio  was  the  first 
to  suggest  doubts  as  to  the  truth  of  all  the  doc- 
trines taught  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church,  and 
Carnesecchi  suggested  others,  whilst  such  doubts 
were,  in  this  circle,  bandied  to  and  fro.  A  passage 
quoted  from  St.  Augustine  upon  the  Psalms, 
where  it  was  questioned  whether  there  was  a  third 
place  besides  heaven  and  hell,  led  Carnesecchi  to 
doubt  as  to  Purgatory ;  in  relation  to  oral  confes- 
sion, his  friend  maintained  that  no  passage 
could  be  found  in  the  Bible  which  ratified  its 
Divine  institution.    It  was  Flaminio  likewise  who, 

c 


34 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


INFLUENCE  OF  JuAn  VALDES. 


35 


after  he  had  written  the  last  sentence  of  his 
revision,  which  he  made  in  Naples,  of  the  golden 
book,  written  by  the  Benedictine  monk,  Don 
Benedetto  da  Mantova,  entitled,  T/ic  Benefit  of 
Christ,  gave  it  to  Carnesecchi  to  read,  who  was 
so  delighted  with  it  that  he  sent  transcribed 
copies  of  it  to  several  of  his  friends. 

Giulia  Gonzaga,  Carnesecchi's  high-spiritedfriend, 
assisted  him  to  apprehend  Valdes.     She  was  the 
star  of  his  life,  even  though  Carnesecchi's  innumer- 
able letters  to  her,  which  the  Inquisition  afterwards 
laid  hands  on,  offered  his  judges  the  most  ample 
material  whereupon  to  condemn  him  as  a  heretic. 
For   years   they   used  cypher,  when  mentioning 
either  friends  or  enemies  ;  thus,  oo  means  Giulia  ; 
55,    Isabella    Brisegna;    5,    Carafa ;    68,    Valdcis. 
Donna  Giulia  was  ever  to  him  a  blessing  from 
God.     She  helped    him    even  during  his  youth, 
directing  his  future  life  by  line  and  by  rule,  so  that 
he  avoided  the  rocks  encountered  by  youth.     Then 
she  brought  him  to  know  Valdes  as  he  without  her 
never  could  have  dene,  since  he  previously  had 
known   Valdus,  without  ever  learning   what   that 
imported.     Or,    as    he    expresses    himself   in     a 
letter  of  the  29th  April,  1559  :  ^  God  has  certainly 
employed   her   in   order   to   bring   me    into    the 
kingdom  of  God,  for  as  soon  as  she  had  accepted 
Valdds'  teaching  she  led  me  to  adopt  it.^      And 
somewhat  later :  '  Donna  Giulia  has  by  her  example 


>'l 


kept  me  back  from  much  that  was  forbidden  and 
dishonourable,  whilst  she  has  especially  delivered 
me  from  superstition  and  from  false  religion,*  an 
observation  which  Carnesecchi  in  an  examination 
thus  interprets  :  '  The  false  religion  was  that 
which  differed  from  the  teaching  and  faith  of 
Vald&,  that  which  he  had  taught  her  and  me ;  in 
that  the  false  based  salvation  upon  good  works, 
whilst  the  latter  remitted  itself  to  faith,  even  as  I 
have  already  so  repeatedly  said  and  declared.* 

That  the  Neapolitan  circle  were  conscious  of 
a  certain  contradiction  between  official  ecclesi- 
astical teaching  and  their  own  is  indubitable. 
They  held  that  they  could  continue  to  be  good 
Catholics,  even  when  they  constituted  justification 
by  faith  alone  the  centre  of  their  personal  religious 
life.  When  the  Church  condemned  this  sentiment 
as  heretical,  and  the  fearful  light  of  its  vindictive 
rays  fell  upon  Paul's  Epistles,  and  amidst  the 
willino-ly  retained  darkness  of  this  pious  com- 
munity, the  strong-minded  ones  became  martyrs, 
the  more  tenderly  organized  and  embarrassed 
spirits  yielded  and  submitted  themselves,  as  in- 
stanced in  the  persons  of  Vittoria  Colonna,  of 
Flaminio,  and  of  so  many  other  persons  of  high 
rank  who  preferred  high  ecclesiastical  dignity  to 
the  martyr's  crown. 

Many  admissions  made  by  Carnesecchi  at  his 
trial  show  how  they  at  Naples  and  elsewhere  who 


36 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI, 


INFLUENCE  OF  JUAN  VALUES. 


yi 


then  half  unconsciously  found  themselves  in  oppo- 
sition to  Romish  teaching,   sought  to  put  them- 
selves right.    We  quote  but  one.    Carnesecchi  had 
written  that  Giulia  had  liberated  him  from  the  false 
religion.      Whereupon  the  Inquisitors   ask   him, 
*  What,  then,  is  religion  ?    It  is  not  faith  alone,  but 
all  Catholic  doctrine. '       To  which  the  accused  re- 
plied :  '  I  never  held  it  to  be  so.  It  is  faith,  however, 
which  alone  gives  energy  to  religion.    Had  Luther 
and  others  stopped  short,  preaching  but  faith,  and 
had   they   not  attacked  the  Papacy,  then  would 
they,  as  Valdes  and  Flaminio  often  said  to  me, 
have  been  left  to  rank  as  Catholic.    This  doctrine 
of   justification   by   faith   alone   embodies    senti- 
ments held  by  all  the  Fathers  of  the  Church,  by 
Augustine,  by  Chrysostom, Bernard, Origen,  Hilary, 
Prosper,  and  others,  and  if  it  be  not  still  generally 
received  doctrine,  that  arises  hence,  that  scholas- 
ticism has  been  more  studied   than   the    Bible.' 
The    Inquisitors   objected     that   the   doctrine   of 
justification  by  faith  admitted  of  other  heretical 
inferences,  such  as  those  proved  by  Luther,  by 
Valdes,  by  the  book   The  Benefit  of  Christ,  and 
by  that  writing  found  amongst  the  accused's  papers, 
written  by  Flaminio,  entitled.  An  Apology  for  the 
Book  The  Benefit  of  Christ,  Carnesecchi  exclaimed, 
Domine,   vim  patior^  responde  pro  7ne  !      *  Lord, 
I  suffer  violence,  answer  Thou  for  me.*     *Such 
was  never  my  purpose.     If  I  later  went  beyond 


Valdes*  teaching,  we  all  nevertheless  believed 
that   the    doctrine   of   faith    was  truly  Catholic' 

*  Why  then  has  the  accused  spoken  of  a  false 
religion  ?'  *  Because  we  held  the  religion  which- 
we  believed  to  be  Catholic  ;  and  that  that,  on 
the  other  hand,  was  false,  which  was  generally 
preached,  especially  by  monks,  who  were  much 
more  philosophers  than  theologians,  rather  scho- 
lastic than  versed  in  the  Bible,  and  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  old  Fathers.  They  taught,  He  that  does 
what  is  right  will  go  to  heaven,  whilst  he  that  does 
that  which  is  wrong  will  go  to  hell — and  that  was 
called  Catholic,  whereby  they  were  inadvertently 
lapsing  into  Pelagianism.'  *  Did  he,  then,  believe 
that  they  who  deviated  from  the  teaching  of  the 
Catholic  Church  could  be  saved  ? '  '  That  is  a 
question  which  should  be  addressed  to  a  theologian, 
and  not  to  me  ;  nevertheless,  I  believe  it,  if  they 
deviate  unwittingly ; '  an  expression  which  Car- 
nesecchi thus  modified  at  his  next  examination  : 

*  I  would  fain  rectify  what  I  stated,  it  being  both 
that  which  is  impossible  and  scandalous,  brought 
upon  me  by  what  I  suffer  since  I  am  here  from 
sleeplessness,  and  partly  by  the  mere  weariness 
and  exhaustion  of  the  examinations.  I  stated  that 
they  who,  in  matters  of  faith,  deviate  from  the 
Holy  Roman  Church,  doing  it  consciously  and 
determinedly,  are  out  of  the  way  of  salvation.  To 
which,  however,  I  ought  to  have  added :  that  they 


38 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


INFLUENCE  OF  JUAN  VALoflS, 


39 


who  deviate  from  the  old  Church  do  so,  whilst 
they  that  deviate  from  the  modern  one  do  not  da 
so.  For  with  relation  to  this  modern  Church,  we 
held,  that  it,  wanting  attention  and  care  upon  the 
part  of  recent  Popes,  has  ceased  to  retain  that 
purity  and  sincerity  of  faith  which  existed  in  the 

Apostles.' 

In  this  manner  they  pacified  the  mind  in  relation 
to  a  difference  with  the  authorities  of  the  Church, 
which  they    themselves   could  not    deny.      The 
position  in  relation  to  German  and  Swiss  Reformers 
followed  logically,  as  the  result  of  what  had  been 
submitted.     Carnesecchi  was  constrained  to  admit 
that  a  member  of  the  Valdesian  circle  who  had 
been  examined  before  himself,  Victor  Soranzio,  the 
Bishop  of  Bergamo,   and  others,  had  called  Dr. 
Luther  '  a  great  and  holy  father,'  '  a  good  old  man,' 
or    'our    most  distinguished    teacher.'     Soranzio 
himself  was  in  the  habit  of  speaking  of  him  as 
il   SILO    buoii    I'ccchio,      When    questioned,    how 
he,  Carnesecchi,  judged  Luther,  he  replied,    *  We 
all    held   that    Luther,    so    far    as  doctrine    and 
eloquence  were  involved,  was  a  great  man;  we 
also  held  that  he  was  personally  sincere  in  what 
he  did ;  and  that  he  only  misled  others  when  he 
had  been  misled  himself  by  his  own  sentiments. 
We    adopted  some   of  his   doctrines,    whilst  we 
repudiated  others.     It  always  displeased  me  that 
he  and  others  had  severed  themselves  from  the 


U 


Catholic  Church,  partly  through  difference  of  sen- 
timent, partly  through  disobedience  ;  for  he  did 
not  submit  to  Councils,  and  he  opposed  Popes.' 
Flaminio  and  Luigi  Priuli,  an  intimate  friend  of 
Cardinal  Pole,  whom  the  Inquisition  subsequently 
threatened,  likewise  disapproved  of  it,  for  they 
said :  *  He  who  is  outside  of  the  pale  of  the 
Church  is  necessarily  beyond  charity.'  '  Thus  they 
endeavoured  to  pick  the  gold  out  of  the  dirt,  and 
handed  over  what  remained  to  the  cook.' 

Carnesecchi  expressly  and  repeatedly  thanked 
his  friend  Giulia,  that  she,  by  her  counsels  and 
exhortations,  had  preserved  him  from  falling  away 
into  Lutheranism.  But  he  felt  more  alienated  from 
Swiss  Reformers  than  from  Lutherans.  Their 
doctrine  in  reference  to  the  Sacrament  terrified 
him,  and  though  opportunity  did  not  fail  him  to 
escape  to  Geneva,  to  Zurich,  or  to  Chiavenna,  he 
did  not  avail  himself  of  it.  A  letter  of  his  upon 
the  teaching  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  written  in  reply 
to  Flaminio,  whose  letter  is  dated  from  Trent, 
1st  Januar}',  1543,  is  couched  in  very  decided  ex- 
pressions against  those  who  deny  Christ's  presence 
in  the  Sacrament  :  *  Where  such  present  them- 
selves, no  confessors  of,  or  witnesses  for,  the 
Christian  faith  will  be  found  amongst  them.'  On 
the  other  hand,  it  is  indeed  true  that  he  calls  the 
Romish  doctrine,  an  absurd  and  venal  offering, 
which  had  long  been  held,  to  be  an  insult  to  the 
Lamb  of  God. 


\ 


LIFE  IN  FLORENCE, 


41 


CHAPTER  IV. 

LIFE  IN  FLORENCE,  VENICE  AND  PARIS. 

After  Valdes'  death,  which  occurred  towards  the 
close  of  the  year  1540  or  the  beginning  of  1541, 
that  charming  circle  of  Neapolitan  friends  was 
dispersed.  The  regulations  established  by  the 
Inquisition,  even  as  affecting  Italy,  by  the  Bull 
Licet  ab  initio  oi  July  21st,  1542,  soon  swept  away 
the  most  faithful  confessors,  Ochino,  Peter  Martyr, 
Galeazzo  and  others,  out  of  the  country  ;  they  who 
remained  were  admonished  to  be  prudent  and  on 
their  guard.  It  seems  that  Carnesecchi  had, 
possibly  before  Valdes'  death,  or  more  probably  in 
May,  1541,  left  Naples  in  company  with  his  friend 
Flaminio,  and  with  Donato  Rullo,  and  that  they 
went  to  Rome.  There  they  lodged  with  the  old 
Cardinal  of  Mantua  ad  arciim  Portmallicc.  Rullo 
remained  in  Rome  ;  Carnesecchi  went  with 
Flaminio  to  Florence,  living  in  Carnesecchi's 
house  from  May  till  the  middle  of  October.  At 
the  Capuchin  Convent,  three  miles  outside 
Florence,  they  once  more  saw  their  friend  Ber- 
nardino Ochino,  who  had  just  got  his  sermons 
ready  for  the  press,  and  who,  but  a  few  months 
subsequently,    had  to   fly   from   the    Inquisition. 


I 


His  enthusiastic  friend,  Caterina  Cibo,  visited 
them  in  Florence,  and  in  the  autumn  she  accom- 
panied them  to  Viterbo,  where  rich  spiritual  feasts 
awaited  them. 

Cardinal  Pole  had  in  1539  returned  to  Rome, 
after  having  made  several  journeys  on  behalf  of 
the  Curia,  and  in  the  summer  of  1541  he  had  been 
appointed  Legate  to  the  patrimony  of  St.  Peter, 
with  the  residence  at  Viterbo.  In  his  suite  there 
were  many  adherents  to  the  new  doctrines.  Luigi 
Priuli,  the  Venetian,  the  Abbot  of  San  Soluto,  who 
at  the  time  of  Carnesecchi's  process  was  the  am- 
bassador of  the  Court  at  Savoy  to  the  Papal  Court ; 
Fabrizio  Brancuti,  who  subsequently  fled  with 
Piero  Gelido,  the  Sacramentarian,  to  P^ ranee ; 
Apollonio  Merenda,  the  Cardinal's  chaplain,  who, 
persecuted  by  the  Inquisition,  and  subjected  to 
torture,  was  condemned,  and  afterwards  fled  from 
Venice  to  Geneva,  assured  against  further  snares  ; 
Vincenzo  Gherio,  who,  under  Pius  IV.,  was 
Archbishop  of  Ischia,  Morone's  adviser,  and 
moreover  that  of  the  Pope  himself,  Donato  Rullo, 
Soranzo,  and  others.  Vittoria  Colonna,  in  Octo- 
ber 1 541,  had  looked  up  for  herself  quiet  quarters 
in  Viterbo,  in  the  cloister  of  St.  Caterina, 
statlnor  that  she  did  so,  'because  she  could 
worship  God  there  better  and  more  quietly  than  in 
Rome.' 

Thus  when  Carnesecchi  and  Flaminio  arrived  at 


42 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


the  Cardinal's  palace,  there  were  assembled  a  com« 
pany  of  similarly  minded  persons,  who  in  the 
intimacy  of  confidence  weighed  questions  affecting 
man  s  salvation,  they  being  all  mutually  interested 
in  them.  Donna  Giulia  sent  them  from  Naples 
not  only  conserve  of  roses  for  the  Cardinal  and  his 
friends,  but  also  Vald&'  writings,  whilst  the  works 
of  the  Reformers  circulated  from  hand  to  hand. 
There  it  was  that  Carnesecchi  read  for  the  first 
time  Luther's  writings,  also  his  exposition  of  the 
gradual  Psalms,  and  Bucer  s  Commentary  upon  the 
Gospel  of  St.  Matthew.  Flaminio  had  already 
given  him  Calvin's  Institutes  in  Florence.  It  must 
have  been  there  that  Vittoria  studied  Luther's 
exposition  of  Psalm  xlv.,  without  being  aware 
that  the  German  Reformer  was  the  author  of  it 
Carnesecchi  reports  that  she  felt  such  joy  and 
refreshment  in  the  perusal  of  it,  as  she  had  never 
previously  experienced  in  reading  any  other 
modern  work. 

Carnesecchi  remained  for  a  year  in  this 
instructive  and  edifying  society.  Confirmed  in 
faith,  enlightened  in  knowledge,  and  strengthened 
to  testify  for  Christ,  he  left  the  scene  of  rich 
blessing,  in  company  with  Donato  Rullo,  for 
Venice,  the  city  of  Rullo's  birth,  in  order  to  consult 
the  medical  men  there  in  relation  to  an  affection 
with  which  he  had  been  tried  for  some  time.  For 
the  first  three  weeks  he  lived  under  Rullo's  roof. 


LIFE  IN  VENICE. 


45 


Then  he  moved  into  his  own  quarters,  and  lived 
in  the   *City  of  the  Lagoons'  fully  three  years, 

until  1545- 

The  Republic  of  Venice  had  vindicated  to  itself 

the   greatest  freedom  and  independence  of  any 
Government  in  Italy,  as  against  the  pretensions  of 
Rome.     Even  during  the  Lent  of  1542,  though 
Bernardino  Ochino  was  already  held  to  be  a  heretic 
at  Rome,  and   though  the  Roman   Nuncio  pur- 
posed forbidding  him  to  preach  in  Venice,  yet  he 
had  been  appointed  Lent  Preacher  for  that  year, 
and  such  was  his  popularity  with  the  citizens,  that 
the  Nuncio  was  forced  to  relinquish  his  purpose. 
After  the  introduction  of  the  Inquisition  into  Rome, 
the  Senate  of  the  Republic  refused  for  a  long  time 
to  raise  a  hand  in  the  erection  of  a  scaffold  within 
its  dominions  ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  year  1560 
that  Venice  carried  out  the  first  sentence  of  death 
upon  matters  of  faith  into  execution.    The  writings 
of  the  Reformers  found  their  way  through  Venice 
into  Italy.    Here  Italian  Bibles  and  other  religious 
books    were    printed.       The    Evangelicals    (the 
believers)  of  the  city  already,  in  the  year  1530, 
warned  Melancthon  at  the  Diet  at  Augsburg,  that 
he  should  not  faint  and  desist  from  the  confession 
of  the  truth  ;  and  in  1542  a  letter  was  sent  by  the 
Churches  at  Venice,  Vicenza,  andTreviso  to  Luther, 
in  which  he  was  entreated  to  become  the  inter- 
cessor with  the  German  Evangelical  Princes  for 


44 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


LIFE  IN  VENICE, 


4S 


the   Italian  Churches,  under  the  oppression  then 
beginning  to  manifest  itself. 

Carnesecchi,  during  the  three  years  he  passed 
in  Venice  and  in  the  cities  within  the  Venetian 
territories,  found  numbers  who  sympathised  with 
him  in  his  religious  views.     The   final  sentence 
reproaches  him   thus  :— *  That  has  come  to  pass 
concerning  thee  which  the  Apostle  says  (2  Tim. 
iii.  13},    *'But  evil  men  and  seducers  shall  wax 
worse  and  worse,  deceiving  and  being  deceived  ; '' 
for   in    Venice,  and  throughout   many   following 
years,  proceeding  from  bad  to  worse,  not  only  hast 
thou  persisted  in  former  heresies,  but  thou  hast 
adopted  others,  imparting  them  to  other  persons 
similarly  heretical  and  suspected,  as  well  by  reading 
many  of  the  heresiarch's,  Martin  Luther's  work^ 
and  those  of  other  heretical  and  prohibited  authors! 
as  also  by  thy  sustained  intercourse  with  many  and 
divers  heretics.' 

Amongst  them  the  document  mentions  Peter 
Paul  Vergerio,  formerly  the  Bishop  of  Capo 
d' I  stria,  who  just  about  that  time  was  entirely  won 
over  to  Evangelical  views  by  the  study  of  the 
writings  of  the  Reformers,  which  he  had  designed 
to  controvert  ;  and  so  likewise  was  his  brother, 
Giovanni  Battista,  Bishop  of  Pola.  Peter  Paul,' 
after  laying  down  his  episcopal  dignity  in  1 540, 
went  to  the  Grisons,  where  he  became  a  Pro- 
testant pastor.     Lattanzio  Ragnone,  of  Sienna,  an 


' 


enthusiastic  pupil  of  Vald^s  and  of  Ochino,  first  a 
Lutheran,  but  afterwards  a  Zwinglian  or  Calvinist ; 
and  finally  Baldassare   Altieri   of  Aquila,  in  the 
Kingdom    of  Naples,  for  some    time    Secretary 
to  the   English   Embassy  at  Venice,  and  subse- 
quently agent  there  for  the   Protestant  German 
Princes,  and  as  such  safely  protected,  the  record 
mentions  as  being  so  many  persons  of  his  faith. 
The  sentence  stigmatizes  Altieri  as  ^  an  apostate 
and  a  Lutheran,  in  correspondence  and  in  harmony 
with  the  German  Princes  and  heretical  Protestants,, 
and  who  assumed  the  monopoly  of  vending  heretical 
and  suspected  books.'   It  then  continues  : — ^And 
without    any  concern    or   fear,    thou    didst   give 
lodging,    shelter,   encouragement,  and  money  to 
many  apostates  and  heretics,  who,  on  account  of 
heresy,  fled  into  heretical  ultramontane  countries ; 
and  thou  didst  by  letter  recommend  to  an  Italian 
Princess,  to  Giulia  Gonzaga,  two  heretical  apos- 
tates, with  as  much  warmth  as  though  they  had 
been  two  apostles  sent  to  preach  the  faith  to  the 
Turks,  as  thou  thyself  confesses!,  which  apostates 
wished  to   open  a  school,  with    the  intention  of 
teachine  their  tender  little  scholars  certain  heretical 
catechisms  ;  but  who,  as  soon  as  they  had  been 
discovered,  were  forthwith  sent  prisoners  to  this 
Holy  Office.' 

It  naturally  came  to  pass  that,  with  the  ever- 
increasing  diffusion  of  the  new  teaching,  and  with 


46 


PIE7R0  CARNESECCHI. 


the  severity  of  the  measures  employed  to  repress 
it,  that  a  man  like  Carnesecchi  could  not  long 
escape  the  suspicion  and  the  proceedings  of  the 
Inquisition.  Paul  III.,  in  1546,  summoned  him 
to  Rome,  that  he  should  justify  himself  against 
accusations  of  heresy  raised  against  him.  We 
cannot  now  ascertain  the  motive  which  induced 
the  Pope  peremptorily  to  drop  a  suit  which  had 
been  instituted  by  the  Inquisition  against  the 
Secretary  and  Protonotary  of  a  predecessor  in  the 
Papal  Chair.  Was  it  an  act  of  complacency  shown 
to  Carnesecchi's  patron,  Cosimo,  Duke  of  Florence, 
who  well  knew  of  the  Pope*s  desire  to  gain 
Florence  ?  The  Duke  formerly  wrote ^  concerning 
the  Pope  : — *  He  has  succeeded  in  many  of  his 
imdertakings,  and  now  desires  nothing  so  much  as 
to  alienate  Florence  from  the  Emperor  ;  but  he 
will  go  down  into  the  grave  with  his  wish  unful- 
filled.' Did  the  striking  tenderness  of  this  suc- 
cessor to  St.  Peter,  shown  to  an  aristocratic  and 
distinguished  favourer  of  Evangelical  doctrines, 
illustrate  Paul's  then  tendency  to  support  those 
who  had  not  been,  up  to  that  time,  conquered  by 
the  mighty  Emperor,  then  daily  becoming  more 
mighty  ?  This  was  a  tendency  which  Leopold  von 
Ranke  thus  puts  forward  in  his  work  on  the  Popes 
of  Ronie^  vol.  i.,  p.  167  : — ^  It  sounds  strange, 
but  there  is  nothing   more  true,  that  whilst  all 

^  Ranke's  Popes^  1874,  vol.  i.,  p.  164. 


LIFE  IN  VENICE, 


47 


Northern  Germany  quaked  at  the  prospect  of  the 
re-introduction  of  Papal  power,  the  Pope  felt  him- 
self to  be  the  confederate  of  the  Protestants.' 

Let  this  be  as  it   may,    anyhow   Paul  himself 
intervened  to  protect  Carnesecchi ;  and  the  exas- 
peration which  this  proceeding  awakened  amongst 
the   fanatical   persecutors   of    Protestantism   still 
rings,  twenty  years  afterwards,  in  the  words  with 
which  that  liberation   of  the  accused  was  repre- 
hended.    For  Carnesecchi's  judgment  goes  on  to 
say  : — '  When  a  report  of  all  these  things  reached 
the  ears  of  Pope  Paul  III.,  of  blessed  memory, 
thou  wast  in  the  year  1546  cited  to  Rome,  where 
appearing,  thou  wast  examined  by  the  Cardinal  of 
Burgos,    of  happy    memory,  then   an  Inquisitor 
deputed  by  the  Pope  to  be  the  commissary  in  this 
Holy  Office  of  this   process ;  and  making  many 
feigned    and    false    excuses    and    replies,    thou 
didst  deny  everything,   and  didst  so  palliate  thy 
faults    that  thy  cause  was  not  judicially  closed  ; 
but,    rebuked  for    thy    past   errors   and   above- 
mentioned   practices,  and  admonished  that  thou 
shouldest  in  future  abstain  from  them,  from  that 
Holy  Pontiff  thou  didst  fraudulently  extort  a  bene- 
diction and  absolution,  whilst  still  remaining,  as 
thou  confessest,  in  the  heresies,  and  under  the 
censures  and  penalties  thereby  incurred,  deluding 
thine  own  soul,  and  this  tribunal  of  truth.' 

That  Carnesecchi,  notwithstanding  the   Papal 


43 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHl. 


pardon,  no  longer   felt   himself  safe  in  Italy,  is 
proved  by  his  having  left  for  France  immediately 
after  the  trial  had  been  stayed,  in  1547,  and  by 
his    stopping    there     no    less   than    five    years. 
Although,  in  relation  to  this  period,  he  must  have 
confessed  that  he  had  lived  there  soberly,  and  that 
he  had  concluded  a  truce  if  not  a  peace  with  senti- 
ments adopted  in  Italy,   and  that  there  was  an 
interregnum  of  the  devil   in  his  soul,  still  it  must 
have  been  quite  alien  to  a  man  like  Carnesecchi 
to  hold  himself  wholly  aloof  from  the  circles  of 
French    Protestantism.       The    Evangelical    faith 
had,  in  spite  of  all  the  persecutions  practised  after 
Francis  I.'s  death  (1547),  under  Henry  II.  widely 
extended ;   and  there  were  many  adherents  both 
amongst  the  upper   circles   and    the  Court   who 
protected  and  befriended  it.     Such  were  the  two 
Margarets    in  the  house  of  Valois  ;  the  sister  of 
Francis  I.,  the  Queen  of  Navarre,  and  mother-in- 
law    of   Antoine   de    Bourbon,    an    enlightened 
Protestant;    Margaret,    Francis'     daughter,    and 
Henry  II.  s  sister,  afterwards  Duchess  of  Savoy, 
a  quiet  adherent  to  the  new  doctrine. 

These  at  Catherine  de'  Medici's  Court  must 
naturally  have  been  intimate  with  the  well-intro- 
duced and  aristocratic  Florentine,  drawn  also 
the  closer  by  sympathy  in  matters  of  faith.  In 
his  examination  immediately  afterwards,  he  main- 
tained   that   in   his  intercourse  with   the    Grand 


LIFE  IN  PARIS, 


49 


Chancellor  Olivier,  a  friend  to  Protestants,  he 
had  spoken  much  more  upon  scientific  subjects, 
upon  the  Latin  verses  of  Vida  and  of  Flaminio, 
upon  ebb  and  flood,  upon  the  vacant  Papal  chair 
and  the  new  Pope,  than  upon  matters  of  faith. 

Carnesecchi  likewise  visited  the  celebrated 
Parisian  bookseller,  Robert  Stephens  {Elienne), 
who  had  long  been  very  strongly  suspected  of 
heresy  at  the  Sorbonne.  He  left  Paris  in  1550, 
in  order  to  join  the  Reformed  faith  and  to  settle 
permanently  at  Geneva.  Carnesecchi  brought 
him  a  collection  of  Latin  hymns,  written  by 
Flaminio  shortly  before  his  death,  which  occurred 
in  the  year  1550.  This  collection  Priuli  had 
sent  to  Carnesecchi,  ^as  being  rightfully  his  by 
inheritance.'  The  deceased  poet's  friend  would 
willingly  have  seen  the  collection,  which  bore  the 
title,  Upo7i  Divine  Subjects  {De  Rebus  Divinis)^ 
printed  by  Stephens,  and  then  personally  have 
placed  them  in  the  hands  of  the  Princess  Mar- 
guerite, their  destination,  for  they  had  been 
dedicated  to  her  by  Flaminio,  in  this  his  swan- 
like song.  But  Stephens  would  not  respond  to 
his  suggestions.  Carnesecchi  assumed  he  did 
not,  because  the  book  was  too  small  and  the 
business  equally  so,  to  admit  of  profit,  whilst  in 
reality  the  bookseller  was  engaged  in  trans- 
porting his  business  to  Geneva.  Carnesecchi 
then  placed  Flaminio's  original  manuscript  in  the 

D 


so 


PIETRO   CARNESECCHI, 


Princess's  hands.  This  is  probably  the  very  same 
book  of  which  it  is  said  in  the  final  judgment : — 
*  Out  of  Italy  thou  hadst  a  book  sent  to  thee 
which  was  stained  with  Valdes'  heresy,  and  didst 
present  it  as  a  gift.'  Similarly  it  was  there 
objected  against  him,  that  he,  when  visiting 
Lyons,  both  in  going  and  in  returning,  as  in  Paris 
and  at  that  Court,  held  intercourse  with  heretics, 
and  that  he  there  read  Melancthon's  Common 
Places,  and  other  suspected  books. 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE   ACCESSION   OF    PAUL   IV. 


Upon  Carnesecchi's  return  journey,  his  friend, 
Lattanzio  Ragnone,  being  in  Lyons,  and  having 
in  the  meanwhile  become  pastor  of  the  Church 
of  fugitive  Italian  Protestants,  sought  to  move 
Carnesecchi  not  to  return  to  his  unsafe  Italy,  but 
to  settle  down  amoncrst  them  in  Geneva.  But 
Pietro  withstood  him,  under  the  influence  partly 
of  the  longing  once  more  to  see  his  friend,  Donna 
Giulia  Gonzaga,  and  partly  of  the  hope  that  under 
the  gentle  sway  of  the  then  Pope,  Julius  III.,  who 
acquiesced  in  comfortable  life  too  much  to  trouble 
himself  about  the  State,  the  Church,  and  the 
Inquisition,  he  might  be  able  to  live  unmolested, 
especially  in  the  territory  of  the  Republic  of 
Venice,  where  he  purposed  again  to  reside.  These 
motives  caused  his  friend's  counsel  to  be  rejected, 
and  he,  in  the  year  1552,  fixed  his  domicile 
at  Padua,  frequently  alternating  it  with  Venice. 

Julius  III.  died  March  23rd,  1555.  The 
worthy  Cardinal,  Cervini,  filled  the  Papal  chair 
but  twenty-one  days,  under  the  title  of  Mar- 
cellus  II.  After  his  death,  which  happened  on 
Ascension  Day,  May  ist,  the  Cardinals  on  May 


52 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


23rd,  1555,  elected  a  man  who  anticipated  that 
choice  as  little  as  did  any  one  else,  he  being  the 
most  uncouth  man  of  their  number,  who  afterwards 
said,  speaking  of  himself : — *  That  he  never  had 
done  a  kindness  to  any  one,  and  that  he  did  not 
^  know  how  it  was  that  the  Cardinals  had  fallen  on 
him — that  it  must  be  God  who  made  Popes.'  He 
was  Gian  Pietro  Caraffa,  an  old  fellow  79  years  of 
age,  the  founder  and  soul  of  the  Italian  Inquisi- 
tion ;  he  assumed  as  his  own  title,  Paul  IV., 
that  having  been  the  name  of  the  Pope  under 
whom  he  had  been  enabled  to  found  this  fearful 
tribunal. 

Had  this  fanatic  not  been  animated  with  one 
other  thought  of  equal  power — with  that  of  libera- 
ting the  Church  by  force  from  the  stains  of  heresy 
— that  storm  would  have  immediately  broken  forth 
upon  his  elevation,  which  during  the  latter  half  of 
^  his  reign  filled  the  prisons  of  Italy  and  fired  the 
faggots  in  which  the  heretics  were  burned.     But 
Paul  hated  the  Hapsburgers  no  less  passionately. 
'  I  will  extirpate  the  accursed  race,   both    father 
and  son !     Charles  V.  and  Philip  II.  are  heretics  ; 
they  are  unworthy  of  the  earth  that  bears  them — 
>/    Charles'  bedeviled  soul   can  no  longer  remain  in 
his  filthy  body,  which,  after  that  it  is  impotent,  is 
still  lecherous.'      The  Pope  frequently  indulged 
in  such  utterances  as  these.  ^ 

^Moritz  Brosch,  Gesch,  dcs  KirchcnstaatSy  18S0,  p.  200. 


ACCESSION  OF  PAUL  IV, 


53 


It  was  fortunate  for  all  who  were  not  found  to 
be    immaculate    in    matters    of  faith    that   Paul, 
carried   away  by   this   passion    to   liberate    Italy 
from  the   House  of  Hapsburg,  occupied  himself 
for  two   years    perpetrating   the  most  incredible 
political  follies.     If  he  throughout  all  that  time 
never  lost  sight  of  his  projected  reform    of  the 
Church,  and  of  the  working  of  the   Inquisition, 
nevertheless,    the  one   passion   of    his  life   must 
necessarily  have   first   developed  itself  in  all  its 
impotence,  ere  the    other  could  assume  despotic 
sway  in  his  mind.      In  the  mad  struggle  against 
Spain,  the    raving   old  man   had  to  realize  that 
that  Catholic  bigot,  the  Duke  of  Alba,  as  Philip 
II.'s  Viceroy  at  Naples,  marched  at  the  head  of 
good    Catholic    soldiers     against    Rome,    whilst 
Paul's  own  troops  fled  before  a  single  company 
of  Spaniards.    Christ's   Vicegerent    would   have 
come  to  grief  had  not  Pietro  Strozzi  come  to  the 
relief  of  the  princely  head  of  the  Church  by  lend- 
ing German  Protestant  warriors,  who  scoffed  at 
the  figures  of  the  saints  by  the  road-side  and  in 
the  churches,  who  ridiculed  the  Mass,  who  made 
a  joke  of  fasting,  and  who  did  a  hundred  things 
any  one  of  which,  at  another  time,  he  would  have 
visited  with  death.^ 

After  the  disgraceful  peace  of  Cavi,  concluded 
on  September  14th,  1557,  with  which  the  Pope 

^  Von  Ranke's  Roman  Topes^  vol.  i.,  p.  190. 


54 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


ACCESSION  OF  PAUL  IV, 


55 


terminated  the  political  dream  of  his  inglorious 
life;  after  having  laid  waste  half  Italy,  the 
irritated  and  thwarted  old  man  spent  his  rage 
upon  heresy,  which  still  raised  its  head  all  over 
the  peninsula.  Already  in  the  summer  the  pri- 
sons of  the  Inquisition  were  full.  On  June  5th^ 
1557,  Carnesecchi,  being  in  Venice,  wrote  to 
Giulia  Gonzaga,  that  together  with  San  Felice, 
Bishop  of  La  Cava,  one  of  the  most  distinguished 
of  all  the  Cardinals  had  had  to  go  into  the  Castle 
of  St.  Angelo  as  a  prisoner ;  Giovanni  Morone^. 
the  son  of  Girolamo  Morone,  the  Milanese 
Chancellor,  who  had  been  so  deeply  involved  in 
an  intrigue  with  Vittoria  Colonna's  gallant  hus- 
band, Pescara. 

Carnesecchi  stood  in  relation  to  Morone  in  the 
position  of  a  most  intimate  adherent  and  friend. 
Their  fathers  had  mutually  honoured  and  loved 
each  other.  Pietro  called  Giovanni  Morone  (born 
in  1509)  his  earliest  master  and  patron,  into  whose 
service  he  had  entered  in  1527,  before  he  became 
Bishop  of  Modena.  When  Clement  VII.,  in  1535^ 
made  Morone  Bishop  of  Modena,  he  dispensed 
him  from  the  canonical  altar,  on  account  of  his 
rare  virtues.  That  Morone,  in  spite  of  his  many 
embassies  to  Germany  in  the  service  of  the  Papal 
chair,  believed  in  justification  by  faith  after  the 
view  of  Valdes,  and  that  he  was  guilty  of  sympathy 
with  the  Evangelicals,  is  not  to  be  denied.     Never- 


theless, his    imprisonment    made    men    shudder. 
Carnesecchi  wrote  to  Giulia  in  Naples  on  June  12th, 
1557,  *  Why  Morone  is  imprisoned,  no  one  knows ; 
many  say  that  the  Cardinals  have  brought  it  about, 
in  order  that  he  may  be  out  of  their  way  at  the 
next  election  of  a  Pope,  when  he  would  get  the 
greatest   number   of  votes.      The    Pope   intends 
summoning  all  the  Cardinals  to  Rome,  that  they 
as  a  College  may  judge  Morone.     Paul   IV.  has 
also  summoned  Soranzio  of  Bergamo,  and  Fos- 
carari.  Bishop  of  Modena,  and  a  Dominican  monk, 
to    Rome.       Now   that   temporal   war   has   been 
brought  to  a  close,  it  appears  that  a  spiritual  one 
shall  commence,  in  order  that  the  world  be  not 
idle,  but  shall  ever  have  opportunity  to  exercise 
both  spirit  and  flesh/ 

Besides  those  above  named,  there  were  many 
other  Church  dignitaries  arrested  and  proceeded 
aeainst ;  the  Abbot  Villamarino,  Morone's  house 
steward ;  a  Venetian,  called  Bishop  Centanni,  Don 
Bartholomeo  Spatafora;  the  Archbishop  Mario 
Galeota  of  Sorrento,  the  Bishop  Verdura,  and 
others.  Cardinal  Pole,  too,  who  sought,  at  the 
Court  of  Bloody  Mary,  first  as  Cardinal- Legate 
and  then  as  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  in  the 
exercise  of  a  wise  moderation,  to  bring  England 
back  to  her  dependence  on  the  Papal  See,  did 
not  escape  Paul  IV. 's  keen  sense  of  suspicion. 
By  a   Brief,  dated  August  9th,  he  was  cited  to 


56 


PIETRO   CARNESECCHI. 


ACCESSION  OF  PAUL  IV, 


S7 


Rome  to  purge  himself  from  suspicion  of  heresy. 
Violent  intermittent  fever,  and  the  Oueen's 
resistance,  who  would  not  allow  her  friend  to 
be  dragged  away,  fortunately  for  him,  retained 
him  in  England  till  his  death,  which  took  place  on 
November  i8th,  1558,  sixteen  hours  after  that  of 
the  Queen,  and  delivered  him  from  all  the  dangers 
that  Paul  IV.  had  devised,  notwithstanding  all 
Pole's  devotion  to  the  Papal  See,  which  was  such 
as  to  be  scandalous  to  his  former  friends,  for  Pole  s 
last  years  could  not  but  be  offensive  to  his  old 
associates  at  Naples  and  Viterbo. 

Carnesecchi  wrote  to  Donna  Giulia  : '  '  Would 
that  Pole  had  died  when  he  came  forth  so 
gloriously  out  of  Pope  Julius'  conclave.  For  at 
his  death  he  was  held  at  Rome  to  have  been 
a  Lutheran,  in  Germany  a  Papist,  at  the  Court 
of  Flanders  a  Frenchman,  and  at  the  French 
Court  an  Imperialist.'  Shortly  before  his  death 
Pole  made  a  declaration  that  he  firmly  held  the 
Catholic  faith,  and  that  he  held  the  Pope,  and  not, 
indeed,  excluding  the  one  then  in  the  chair,  to  be 
really  the  vicar  of  Christ  and  Peter  s  successor. 
Carnesecchi,  moreover,  taking  up  an  expression  of 
Giulia's,  stated  that  in  a  letter  to  her  which  after- 
wards weighed  heavily  upon  him.  He  wrote  on 
Februarys  nth,  1559:  '  It  has  gratified  me  extra- 
ordinarily that  Donna  Giulia  disapproves  Pole's 

'  Page  130  of  MS. 


declaration,  for  it  practically  is  superfluous,  if  not 
offensive,  and  especially  so  at  the  present  time/ 

Although  Carnesecchi  thought  of  it  just  as  did 
Donna  Giulia,  still,  from  diffidence,  he  would  say 
nothing.  '  Nevertheless,  there  is  a  great  difference 
between  Pole  and  Vald^s,  and  with  both  is  that 
verse  verified : 

"  As  evening  characterises  the  day,  so  does  death  life." 
Well,  then,  we  will  thank  God  that  our  faith 
does  not  depend  on  men,  neither  are  its  founda- 
tions laid  on  sand,  but  on  the  everlasting  rock, 
upon  which  the  Apostles  and  Prophets,  and  all 
God's  saints  have  similarly  built  theirs.  May 
God  be  pleased  to  grant  us  grace  to  live  and  to 
die  steadfastly  therein  ! ' 


/ 


/ 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE  PERSECUTION  UNDER  PAUL  IV. 

In  the  meanwhile,  Carnesecchi,  too,  found  himself 
brought  into  unpleasant  personal  contact  with  the 
Inquisition.  Paul  IV.  on  his  part  could  not  allow 
the  man  who  so  unexpectedly  had  escaped  him  to 
pass  unassailed.  He  cited  him  by  a  Decree  of 
October  25th,  1557,  to  appear  before  a  General 
Assembly  of  'the  Holy  Cardinals  of  the  Inquisition ' 
at  their  tribunal  at  Rome,  there  personally  to  clear 
himself  from  the  accusation  of  having  long  adhered 
to  many  Lutheran  articles,  of  having  had  heretical 
books,  and  of  having  maintained  intercourse  with 
heretics.  The  citation  was  personally  served  on 
him  at  Venice,  on  November  6th. 

Carnesecchi  refused  to  appear  at  Rome,  and 
was  bold  enough  to  remain  at  Venice.  The 
Republic  had  just  withstood  inducements  held  out 
to  it  by  Paul  to  enter  into  a  confederation  against 
the  Spaniards,  as  also  against  his  extensive  pro- 
mises that  the  Island  Queen  should  hold  Sicily  for 
evermore  as  her  own.  These  propositions  she 
obstinately  rejected,  for  she  met  them  with  deep 
distrust  —hence  there  arose,  as  frequently  happened, 
strained   relations   between    V'enice    and    Rome. 


PERSECUTION  UNDER  PAUL  IW 


5» 


Carnesecchi,  in  his  reliance  thereupon,  dared  to 
defy  the  Pope  and  his  citation.  The  consequence 
was  that  the  accused  was  declared,  by  a  decree 
issued  by  the  Inquisition,  dated  March  24th,  1558^ 
having  the  expressed  assent  of  the  doctors,  theolo- 
gians, and  canonists,  to  have  incurred  the  censures 
and  penalties  threatened  in  the  citation  ;  and  this 
declaration  was  published  contemporaneously  ia 
Rome  and  in  Venice. 

As  this  step  likewise  achieved  nothing,  final  judg- 
ment was  delivered  on  April  6th,  1559,  whereby 
Carnesecchi  was  declared  to  be  a  heretic  in  con- 
tumacy, and  he  was  sentenced  to  the  punishments 
which  attach  to  impenitent  heretics.  All  his  pro- 
perty, movable  and  immovable,  was  confiscated  ; 
he  was  deprived  of  his  benefices,  and  the  warrant, 
issued  against  him  notified  that  he,  when  seized, 
would  be  handed  over  to  the  secular  arm. 

It  may  be  imagined  that  Carnesecchi,  in  spite  of 
the  protection  which  he  anticipated  in  Venice,  must 
nevertheless  have  lived  an  oppressive  and  anxious 
life  during  these  years.  Describing  it,  he  says 
that  he  felt  like  a  wild  beast,  in  continuous  fear  and 
anxiety  amidst  the  hostility  which  surrounded  him. 
The  zeal  of  the  decrepit  old  Pope  waxed  with 
every  additional  person  cast  into  the  dungeons  of 
the  Inquisition,  as  also  at  the  escape  of  every  one 
who  evaded  them.  Distinguished  Church  digni- 
taries in  the  cells  of  Roman  prisons  were  daily 


6o 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


threatened  with  the  rack ;  even  Cardinal  Morone 
was,  according  to  a  letter  of  Donna  Giulia, 
exposed  to  torture.  Paul  IV.  was  so  enraged  at 
Pole's  death,  that  he  declared  that  he  would  by 
every  possible  means  reveal  what  a  heretic  and 
rebel  he  had  been.  Carnesecchi,  writing  upon  this 
subject  to  Donna  Giulia,  said,  ^Whereby  the  Pope 
will  assuredly  more  reveal  his  own  folly  and 
iniquity,  than  obscure  the  memory  and  the  fame 
which  so  excellent  a  man  had  bequeathed  to  all, 
and  especially  to  good  men/ 

The  Duchess  of  Trajetto,  Vittoria  Colonna,  did 
not  dare  to  leave  Naples,  because  she  feared 
lest  she  should  fall  into  the  Pope's  hands  as  one 
suspected  of  Valdcsian  heresy.  The  Duke  Cosimo 
of  Florence  interceded  for  Carnesecchi,  but  in 
vain.  The  Pope  requested  the  Venetian  Senate 
to  deliver  up  the  condemned  one  ;  the  first  time  un- 
successfully. But  Carnesecchi  doubted  whether 
a  second  application  would  not  issue  in  his  being 
banished  from  their  territory.  The  refugees  in 
Switzerland  likewise  often  sought  to  move  him 
to  spontaneous  flight.  The  Count  Galeazzo 
Caracciolo  entreated  him  to  flee,  when  he,  in  the 
summer  of  1558,  having  a  safe-conduct  from  the 
Viceroy,  to  visit  his  family  left  behind  by  him  in 
the  kingdom  of  Naples,  went  there  in  order  to 
move  them  to  share  his  exile — an  effort  in  which 
he  was  vigorously  supported  by  Carnesecchi. 


PERSECUTION  UNDER  PAUL  IK 


61 


Freedom  to  be  able  to  live  after  a  man's  heart- 
felt religious  convictions  ;  the  Gospel  preached  in 
all  its  purity  in  the  countries  to  which  the  Refor- 
mation had  extended ;  the  zeal  with  which  the  Holy 
Scriptures  was  read   and   expounded;   the  more 
frequent   administration   of  the    Lord's   Supper; 
the  temptation  to  insult  God  by  daily  recurring 
idolatry  and  other  reckless  acts  performed  by  the 
man  who  irresolutely  limps  when  seeking  to  follow 
both   sides— all  this  powerfully  attracted  Carne- 
secchi to  the  reformed  Swiss  Cantons,  besides  his 
being  at  all  times  threatened  with  personal  danger. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  there  was  much  to  retain 
him   in   alienation    from    the    doctrines    held    by 
Zwingle  and   by   Calvin   on  the   Sacrament;  his 
heart's  yearning  to  remain  as  near  as  possible  to 
his  friend    Giulia,    in  the   hope  of  resuming   his 
intimacy  with  her ;  the  hesitancy  lest  he,  by  his 
flight,  should  possibly  injure  his  patrons  and  friends 
who    were    in   the    prisons    of  the  Inquisition   in 
Rome.     Then  again,  he,  like  many  others,  hoped 
that  a  new  Pope  might,  from  Paul's  great  age,  ere 
lono-  present  himself,  the  strings  of  whose  adminis- 
tration would  not  be  strung  up  so  taut. 

On  March  25th,  1559,  and  hence  on  the  day 
after  his  definitive  condemnation  in  Rome,  where, 
as  he  thought,  his  efiigy  would  have  been  publicly 
burnt  by  the  Inquisition,  Carnesecchi  writes  to 
Giulia:  'When  I  think  on  the  good  grounds  which 


'62 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


PERSECUTION  UNDER  PAUL  IV. 


6S 


Carnesecchi  has  to  calculate  on  the  favour  and 
help  which  present  themselves  in  different  direc- 
tions to  him,  as  also  on  the  goodwill  and  amiability 
which  Popes  are  wont  to  manifest  when  they  begin 
their  rule,  I  do  not  for  a  moment  doubt  but  that 
he  will  be  rehabilitated  and  honourably  reinstated — 
unless  a  Bull  have  been  issued  against  him,  which 
the  Pope  shall  have  launched  against  persons  in 
the  same  predicament  as  his.  In  the  meanwhile 
this  has  not  been  published,  and  will,  on  the  other 
hand,  from  what  I  hear,  be  so  unjust  that  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  his  successor  will  not  carry  it  out — 
unless  he  should  prove  to  be  an  Alessandrino ; '  (by 
whom  he  meant  Cardinal  Michele  Ghislieri,  Paul 
IV.'s  Commissary  General  of  the  Inquisition,  who 
in  1566  actually  became  Pope,  styling  himself  Pius 
V.) — 'from  him  or  any  one  like  him,  may  God 
preserve  us  ! ' 

The  tough,  wiry  frame  of  the  old  monk  filling 
the  Papal  chair  still  resisted  death.  Carnesecchi 
felt  perplexed  as  to  what  he  ought  to  do.  The 
Cardinal  of  Trent,  kindly  disposed  to  him,  advised 
that  he  should  write  to  the  Pope,  apparently 
submitting  himself  to  him,  and  stating  that  he 
was  too  unwell  to  ride  on  horseback  ;  and  that 
this  would  help  him,  if  not  with  the  present  Pope, 
at  least  with  his  successor.  Carnesecchi  thought 
of  migrating  to  his  native  Tuscany,  where  he 
anticipated  assured  protection  by  Cosimo,  or  to 


France,  or  to  England.    But  the  news  of  Caraffa  s 
•death  came  at  last. 

With   what   a   shout    of  joy   this   was   hailed 
throughout  the  earth !     Whilst  the  Pope  was  still 
struggling  with  the  agony  of  death,  the  Romans 
already  rose  in  revolt.     This  was  on  August  i8th, 
1559.     ^  In  the  Capitol  a  decree  was  formulated 
by  which  the  prisons  were  to  be  opened  ;  then  the 
wild   masses   spread  themselves  throughout   the 
city.     They    first   stormed   the   building   of   the 
Inquisition,  they  threw  all  its  documents  out  of 
the     windows,    and     they     plundered     Cardinal 
Ohislieri's  apartments,  he  being  the  highest  resi- 
dent authority;  they  did  the  same  to  the  other 
officials,   personally   maltreating  them ;    they  set 
fire  to  and  burned  part  of  the  palace  down.     The 
news  of  the  Pope's   death  having    spread,    they 
hurried    to   Santa    Maria    sopra    Minerva,    they 
liberated  those  who  w^ere  incarcerated  there,   and 
would  have  burnt  down  that  convent,  and  have 
thrown  the  monks  out  of  the  windows,  had  they 
not  been  prevented  by  Giuliano  Cesarini.     The 
other   prisons,    the   Torre   Savella,    the  Tor    di 
Nona,  and  that  of  the  Senators,  were  also  broken 
open  ;  they  set  at  liberty  four  hundred  prisoners, 
of  whom  but  seventy  had  been  placed  in  charge 
by  the   Inquisition,   however,  of  them  forty-two 
were  arch-heretics.     But  they  went  on  worse  the 
day  after  Paul's  death.     Some  months  previously. 


^ 


64 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


when  PauPs  two  nephews  fell,  a  statue  had  been 
erected  to  the  Pope  in  the  Capitol.  This  statue 
now  became  the  object  upon  which  the  people 
vented  their  fury.  The  magistracy  assembled 
very  early.  The  open  space  was  soon  thronged. 
The  populace  pulled  the  statue  down  from  its 
pedestal,  and  broke  it  up ;  whilst  the  magistracy 
and  the  higher  orders  looked  on  and  laughed 
when  they  saw  a  Jew  put  his  yellow  cap  upon 
the  Pope's  head.  Throughout  that  live-long  day 
did  this  head  remain  as  the  butt  for  the  contempt 
of  the  rabble,  but  towards  evening  some  persons, 
moved  by  commiseration,  threw  it  into  the 
Tiber.  And  when  the  festivities  attained  their 
height  upon  the  third  day,  the  Sunday,  all  the 
inscriptions  and  arms  of  the  Caraffa  were 
smashed  and  obliterated.'  Such  is  the  report 
of  a  decidedly  Catholic  historian.' 

Can  any  one  blame  Carnesecchi  if  he  ex- 
perienced joy  at  this  death  ?  Nevertheless  he 
was  blamed  for  doing  so.  In  as  late  an  exami- 
nation as  that  of  December  14th,  1566,  the 
Inquisitors  put  this  interrogatory  to  him — Why 
had  he  so  earnestly  desired  the  Pope's  death  ?  and 
when  consummated,  why  had  he  so  greatly  rejoiced  } 
This  was  his  noble  reply — *  I  do  not  think  that 
such  a  question  needs  to  be  answered ;  the  thing 

^  Alfred  von  Reumont,  in  his  History  of  the  City  of  Romey  vol.  ill., 

part  2,  pp.  542,  543. 


PERSECUTION  UNDER  PAUL  Il\ 


65 


speaks  for  itself.'  The  Cardinals  proceeded — 
Had  he  rejoiced  at  the  fire  which  burnt  the  palace 
of  the  Inquisition,  situate  in  the  Ripetta,  in  con- 
nection with  the  death  of  Paul  IV.  of  happy 
memory  ?  ^  Certainly,  I  cannot  conscientiously 
deny  it ;  because  I  hoped  in  relation  to  myself  and 
to  others  that  my  process  would  be  dispatched  by 
this  fire,  and  that  theirs  would  be  facilitated.' 
Asked  whether  he  attributed  this  fire  to  the 
judgment  of  God,  visited  because  of  the  persecu- 
tion of  heretics  ?  Neither  would  he  deny  this;  for 
if  indeed  he  had  never  said  or  written  it,  he 
assuredly  had  thought  it.  Whether  he  had  re- 
joiced over  the  liberation  of  those  who  were  being 
examined  by  the  Inquisition  in  that  palace  ? 
Indeed  he  had.  Why  did  he  hold  them  to  be 
innocent  ?  Because  he  thought  that  they  had  but 
retained  the  article  of  justification  by  faith. 

Carnesecchi  fortunately  answered  all  these 
questions  correctly — for  frequently  he  never 
surmised  with  what  purpose  the  questions  were 
put  to  him — as,  for  instance,  whether  he  had 
ever  wished  that  Paul  should  meet  an  early  death, 
&c.,  &c.  These  questions  were  based  upon 
statements  made  by  Carnesecchi  in  his  correspon- 
dence, but  which  he  had  long  forgotten.  The 
following  reflections  by  the  accused,  made  in  a 
letter  to  Donna  Giulia,  on  September  2nd,  1559, 
were  adduced  against  him  as  evidence : — '  Your 


66 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


ladyship  will  have  heard  that  the  Holy  Inquisi- 
tion has  died  the  same  death  by  which  she  was 
wont  to  put  others  to  death,  that  is  by  fire.  And 
certainly  this  Is  a  very  remarkable  event,  from 
which  the  conclusion  may  be  drawn,  that  it  can- 
not be  acceptable  to  the  Divine  clemency  that 
this  Office  henceforth  proceed  with  the  same 
strictness  and  severity  as  it  has  in  the  past.  It 
ought  rather  to  deal  amiably,  as  exemplified  by 
former  Popes — a  line  of  conduct  which  is  much 
more  becomine.' 


CHAPTER  Vn. 

REVERSAL    OF    THE    FIRST    SENTENCE   AGAINST 

CARNESECCHI. 

Carnesecchi,  believing  in  the  merits  of  his  cause, 
now  went  to  Rome  to  get  his  process  reviewed. 
The  Duke  Cosimo  had  promised  him  that  he  would, 
were  it  needed,  put  horses  and  cavaliers  in  motion 
to  support  him,  and  to  assist  him  to  attain  his 
rights.  Morone  for  a  long  period  had  the  greatest 
prospect  of  ascending  the  Papal  throne  ;  but  he, 
when  Paul  IV.  closed  his  eyes,  was  a  prisoner  in 
the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo.  The  College  of  Cardinals 
determined — Carnesecchi  states  it  in  writing — that 
his  process  was  null  and  void,  false  and  iniquitous ; 
and  as  such,  deserving  to  be  burnt ;  and  the 
burning  was  actually  carried  out  before  them  all. 
Cosimo,  too,  at  Florence,  supported  Morone  s 
nomination  with  unusual  earnestness.  Carne- 
secchi's  letters  of  this  period  speak  out  respect- 
ing the  Papal  election  with  great  openness. 
*  Should  Morone  become  Pope,'  says  he,  on  Octo- 
ber i8th,  1559,  *we  could  wish  him  to  lay  aside 
one  fault  which  he  showed  when  he  voted  for 
Paul  IV.,  viz.,  his  faint-heartedness.' 

The  Cardinal  Medici,  who  was  nominated  at 


68 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


the  same  time  as  Morone  as  the  future  Pope,  and 
who  was  actually  elected  by  the  Conclave,  had 
given  the  promise — Carnesecchi  vouches  it — 
that  were  he  appointed  Pope,  he  would  give  the 
German  clergy  permission  to  marry,  and  the  Com- 
munion in  both  kinds,  if  they  would  come  back  to 
the  other  teaching  of  the  Church.  *  Even  Aracoeli 
has  hopes,'  (so  says  Carnesecchi  in  a  letter  to 
Giulia,  written  when  travelling  from  Florence  to 
Rome,  on  December  2nd,  1559),  ^although  he  is 
a  monk,  which  is  looked  upon  as  a  second  original 
sin  added  on  to  that  which  man  ordinarily  has.' 

Giovanni  Angelo  Medici,  a  Milanese  upstart, 
insignificant  by  birth,  but  an  amiable,  kindly-dis- 
posed man,  was  elected  Pope  on  December  25th, 
as  Pius  IV.  On  January  3rd,  1560,  Carnesecchi 
wrote  from  Pisa : — ^  I  start  for  Rome  the  day 
after  to-morrow,  where  I  hope  that  my  matter  will 
issue  well,  not  only  because  of  its  inherent  good- 
ness and  rectitude,  which  cause  it  to  be  commended 
to  His  Holiness,  but  because  of  the  authority  and 
of  the  favour  which  my  Prince  has  in  his  sight.' 

But,  in  the  meanwhile,  things  did  not  move 
forward  so  smoothly  as  he  had  hoped.  Carne- 
secchi, by  the  advice  of  his  patrons,  lived  in  great 
retirement.  He  only  went  out  at  night,  or  if  by 
day,  in  a  carriage.  Morone  exercised  great  influ- 
ence upon  Pius  IV.  in  his  decisions;  but  Morone 
at  first  did  not  dare  to  open  his  mouth  on  behalf 


REVERSAL  OF  THE  FIRST  SENTENCE, 


69 


of  his  friend,  '  and  acted  as  though  apparently  he 
did  not  know  him.  His  others  patrons  also  inter- 
posed on  his  behalf  rather  by  consolatory  pro- 
mises than  by  practical  assistance.  The  revision 
of  his  process  dragged  its  weary  way  from  week 
to  week  and  from  month  to  month.  In  spite  of 
the  favour  that  Carnesecchi  enjoyed  amongst  thos,e 
who  surrounded  the  Pope,  he  had  to  remain  in  a 
sort  of  imprisonment  in  the  Cloister  of  the  Servites, 
St.  Marcellus,  on  the  Corso.  He  was  not  confined 
within  its  walls,  but  he  only  went  out  at  night,  and 
then  with  the  modesty  and  quietness  that  had  been 
imposed  upon  him. 

He  wrote  on  August  31st  that  he  no  longer 
looked  for  his  liberation  from  men,  nor  from  the 
Pope,  but  from  God  only.  The  Cardinal  of  Trent, 
who  had  been  appointed  an  Inquisitor,  visited  him 
in  his  convent  in  September,  and  in  October 
Cardinal  Seripando,  who  likewise  was  one  of  his 
friends,  and  who  had  been  nominated  one  of  the 
Holy  College,  came  to  him.  At  length  the  Duke 
Cosimo  made  his  appearance  in  Rome,  and  sought 
personally  to  move  the  Pope  on  his  behalf.  But 
his  destiny  was  again  controlled  by  his  evil  star. 
The  Duke  fell  sick,  and  the  Duchess,  who  also 
had  promised  Carnesecchi  to  help  him,  could  do 
nothing,  for  she  was  wholly  absorbed  in  nursing. 
At  last  Pius  declared  that  he  would  judge  this 
matter  himself,  partly  because  he  had  Carnesecchi's 


TO 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


honour  at  heart,  and  partly  out  of  consideration  for 
the  Duke  and  Duchess.  Then,  '  changeable  as  a 
leaf/  he  withdrew  his  promise,  and  said  that  he 
would  see  to  it  that  no  injustice  should  be  done 
to  Carnesecchi. 

Under  date  of  December  5th,  1 560,  Pietro  writes 
in  despair  : — '  Nothing  progresses  !  The  fault 
lies  with  the  Inquisitors,  partly  because  they  will 
not  judge  as  right  and  duty  dictate,  for  they  sug- 
gest scrupulous  hesitancy  where  there  is  no  ground 
for  it,  and  interpret  that  prejudicially  which,  rightly 
apprehended,  is  good  and  praiseworthy.  O  God, 
pardon  them  who  sin  through  ignorance  ;  but  the 
others  so  convert  or  ruin,  that  they  may  be  unable 
daily  to  injure  the  innocent !  As  to  Seripando, 
there  is  no  placing  reliance  on  him,  for  he  does  not 
take  his  seat  at  the  tribunal ;  he  is  sick,  and  would 
willingly  act  the  truant,  for  he  well  knows  the  diffi- 
culties, and  wants  the  courage  to  encounter  them 
single-handed.' 

Later  on  the  Pope  permitted  Carnesecchi  himself 
to  visit  the  Duke,  and  to  plead  his  own  cause,  but 
only  in  Ghislieri's  presence.  '  I  never  feared 
but  that  my  innocence  would  make  itself  manifest,, 
even  had  there  been  seven  Alessandrinis  instead  of 
one.'  On  December  13th,  Carnesecchi  v/as  admitted 
to  the  Pope's  presence,  for  the  Pope  determined  to 
withdraw  the  process  from  the  tribunal,  and  to 
deliver  judgment  thereupon  himself.     But  this  was 


REVERSAL  OF  THE  FIRST  SENTENCE, 


71 


unsatisfactory  to    Carnesecchi,    who   feared    that 
benevolence  ex^gerated  would  but  lead  to  pro- 
tracted proceedings.      In  a  letter  on  January  23rd, 
1 56 1,  he  says: — *  I  have  had  so  much   to  do,  in 
reflecting  upon  the  answers,  and  how  to  formulate 
them  which  I  have  to  give   to    my — shall  I  call 
them  judges  or  opponents  ? — that  I  have  scarcely 
found  time  to  eat  and  to  sleep,  less  time  to  write 
about  my  affairs,  which,  after  all,  encountered  such 
a  storm  that  I  at  times  was  constrained  to  fear 
shipwreck.      But  now  it  is  all  right,  and  I  am  so 
near  the  haven  that  I  can  say  I  am  in  safety.    My 
storms  sprang  from  my  refusal  to  deny  the  favour- 
able opinions    which    I    hold    of  Vald^s    and    of 
Galeazzo  Caracciolo,  in  doing  which  I  necessarily 
vindicated  certain  propositions  of  Valdfe,  by  which 
the  judges  were  the  more  exasperated.     But  since 
I  have   cleared   myself,    they   must   digest   their 
choler.* 

Finally,  on  May  8th,  1561,  after  a  year  and 
a-halfs  anxiety  and  privation,  he  was  able  to 
write  : — '  All  has  been  considered,  deliberated  upon 
and  ventilated  by  these  my  illustrious  and  most 
reverend  Lords  Cardinals,  and  has  issued  well,  as 
the  tenor  of  the  subjoined  sentence  proves,  which, 
dictated  and  composed  by  my  own  advocate,  concurs 
fully  and  entirely  with  what  I  could  have  wished. 
I  beg  you  to  send  it  on  to  Monsignor  Mario 
(Galeota,  the  Archbishop  of  Sorrento),  in  order 


72 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


that  he  may  see  that  I  too  am  an  Israelite,  and 
that  he  henceforth  will  not  have  so  much  to  fear 
in  responding  to  my  salutations,  since  he  himself 
may  now  rejoice  over  my  liberation.' 

Carnesecchi  appears  to  have  remained  in  Rome 
until  October.  Then  he  went  to  Naples,  to  salute 
his  friends,  who  had  taken  such  heartfelt  interest 
in  his  fate.  He  lodged  with  the  monks  of  San 
Giovanni  in  Carbonaria,  whom  the  Cardinal 
Seripando  had  to  order  over  and  over  again 
to  give  Carnesecchi  his  own  room  ;  it  was 
only  with  suppressed  rage  that  the  monks  re- 
ceived the  suspected  person.  He  afterwards 
must  have  travelled  about  a  great  deal.  In  his 
final  judgment  he  was  reproached  that  after  his 
liberation  he  still  occupied  himself  with  heretics 
and  heresy,  in  Rome,  in  Naples,  in  Florence,  in 
Venice,  and  in  other  parts  of  Italy,  .upholding 
suspected  persons  with  counsel  and  with  funds. 
The  last  letter  cited  in  extracts  in  the  proceedings 
was  one  addressed  to  Donna  Giulia  of  November 
24th,  1563,  from  the  Abbey  of  Casal  Nuovo  (she 
dded  in  1566).  He  says,  *  Be  not  surprised  at  my 
great  activity  or  wantonness,  when  you  contemplate 
me  rushing,  like  Caesar,  with  such  rapidity  through- 
out all  Italy.  I  feel  more  robust  than  ever.  It 
appears  to  be  God's  will  to  compensate  me  here 
on  earth  for  the  sicknesses  and  other  afflictions 
which,  sent  me  by  Him,  I  have  patiendy  borne. 


REVERSAL  OF  THE  FIRST  SENTENCE, 


73 


God,  too,  has  given  me  this  abbey,  after  that  He 
had  taken  the  other,  Eboli,  from  me.' 

Surely    everyone    will     understand    that    this, 
Carnesecchi's  second  liberation  from  the  toils  of 
the  Inquisition,  would  be  borne  with  the  greatest 
exasperation  both    by    it  and    its    friends.     The 
mode  in  which  this  act  of  the  Pope  was  judged 
in  these  circles  finds  expression,  notwithstanding 
all  prudence  and  reverence,  in  Carnesecchi's  final 
judgment.     There  it  states,  in  relation  to  this  last 
depicted  period  :— '  After  Paul   IV.'s  death,  thou 
hast  by  various    ways  and    means    endeavoured 
with   many  artifices  and  importunate    entreaties, 
and  with  certain  feigned  excuses,  made  to  Pope 
Pius  IV.,  of  happy  memory,  that  thou  shouldest 
be  admitted  to  an  audience,  which  thou  couldest 
not  have  been  admitted  to,  had  it  not  been  for 
his  clemency,  since  thou  hadst  been  legally  con- 
demned as  a  convicted  heretic.     And  to  excuse  thy 
faults,  which  thou  hast  dissimulated  and  concealed, 
according  to  thy  habit,  at  thy  examinations  of  that 
period,    pardy  by  feigning   ignorance,    and  pardy 
by   not  only   not    revealing  thine    errors    against 
the    holy    faith,   but    likewise    by    not    satisfying 
general   interrogatories    upon    the   subjects  upon 
which  thou  wast   inquisited,  it  appearing  to  thee 
that  thou   wert  not   under    obligation    to    reveal 
them.     And   then   in   the   special    interrogatories 
by   equivocating   and   avoiding    to    answer  them 


74 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


simply,  and   partly   by   taking   counsel   with   the 
talent  of  thy  prison,  thou  hast  had  certain  answers 
and  declarations  put  in  thy  mouth,  both  by  some 
others  who  had  been  inquisited  for  heresy,  but  who 
had  been  set  at  liberty,  and  by  certain  theologians, 
making  every  effort,  by  fraudulent  persuasions  and 
illicit  modes,  in  order  that  thou  mightest  be  set  free 
as  being  innocent,  and  absolved  by  the  Holy  Office 
from  the  imputations  alleged  against  thee,  which 
thou  oughtest,  for  thy  salvation,  sincerely  to  con- 
fess, and  publicly  to  abjure  and  detest,  in  order 
to  be  admitted  by  grace   into  the  bosom   of  the 
Church.     Which  thou  hast  done  out  of  regard  to 
worldly  honour,  and  to  avoid  the  punishments  due 
to  heretics,  causing  many  witnesses  to  be  examined 
to  confirm  thy  falsehoods,  and  in  order,  as  thou 
saidst,  to  canonize  thee,  and  for  the  justification  of 
thy   masters  and  companions.      Whence    by   thy 
artifices  and  false  pretences,  and  through  certain 
writings  and  proceedings  having  been  burnt  in  the 
fire  of  the  Ripetta,  by  which  the  truth  might  have 
been  cleared  up,  thou  didst  so  far  succeed  that, 
instead  of  a  severe  condemnation,  thou  hast  extorted, 
and  that  iniquitously,  a  sentence  of  absolution,  as 
though  thou  hadst  always  been  an  innocent  and 
good  Catholic ;  and,  nevertheless,  thou  hast  under 
thine  own  hand  declared  and  confessed  that  all  the 
accusations  made  against  thee  were  most  true,  and 
that  thy  excuses  and  justifications  were  simulated 


REVERSAL  OF  THE  FIRST  SENTENCE.  75 

and  feigned,  as  well  those  of  the  process  made  la 
the  days  of  Pius  as  in  those  of  Paul,  and  to  the 
greater  damnation  of  thy  soul;  and,  deceiving  His 
Holiness  the  first-named  Pope,  thou  hast  obtained 
from  him,  surreptitiously  and  clandestinely,  a  inottt 
propio  confirmatory  of  the  above  sentence.' 

That  such  a  head  of  game  should  have  escaped 
it  was  constantly  present  to  the  mind  of  the  Holy 
Office.  It  was  on  the  watch  for  a  more  favourable 
opportunity  to  spend  its  wrath  upon  the  man  who 
had  twice  got  out  of  its  meshes.  And  this  oppor- 
tunity presented  itself. 

In  spite  of  all  the  warnings  from  abroad,  from 
those  friends  of  Carnesecchi  who  had  fled  and  lived 
there  in  safety,  he  could  not  make  up  his  mind  to 
leave  his  native  land.  In  1565  he  was  again  in 
Venice,  where  he  was  the  year  prior  to  that  in  which 
Giulia  died,  he  having  induced  her,  in  1 564,  to  send 
to  him  at  Venice  the  writings  of  Vald^s  which  she 
had,  lest  possession  of  them  should  imperil  her.  In 
the  meanwhile  Carnesecchi's  ruin  was  rapidly 
hastening  on. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  FINAL    TRIAL,  ARTICLES  OF  CONDEMNATION  AND 
^L\RTVRDOM  OF  CARNESECCHL 

Plus  IV.,  the  gentle  Pope,  died  early  in  December, 
1565.  The  Pope  elected  by  the  Conclave  was 
Paul  IV.'s  supreme  Inquisitor,  the  ferocious  and 
inexorable  Dominican,  Michael  Ghislieri,  the 
Cardinal  of  Alessandria,  who  assumed  the  title 
of  Pope  Pius  V.  Under  his  control,  which  with 
keen  and  persistent  energy  insinuated  itself  where- 
ever  opportunity  offered,  clemency  became  a  thing 
of  the  past,  and  'one  Alessandrino,*  occupying 
the  Papal  chair,  was  perfectly  able  to  ruin 
Carnesecchi. 

We  have  witnessed  with  what  repeated  welcomes 
Duke  Cosimo  of  Florence  had  received  the  friend 
of  his  house.  It  was  with  him  that  Carnesecchi 
sought  protection  when  his  most  bitter  enemy 
attained  the  supreme  rule  of  the  Church.  But  how 
did  Ghislieri's  reckless  energy  paralyse  others! 
Cosimo,  too,  was  destined  to  feel  its  influence. 

Carnesecchi  was  a  guest  at  his  sovereign's  table 
when  the  friar  Tomaso  Manrique,  the  Master  of 
the  Papal  Palace,  was  announced,  as  sent  on  a 
special  mission  to  Florence,  and  desiring  an  inter- 


THE  FINAL  TRIAL. 


77 


view  with  the  Duke.     The  Pope  had  furnished  his 
messenger  with  a  letter  bearing  date  June  20th, 
1566,  in  which,   after  greeting  Cosimo  with  the 
Apostolic  Benediction,   '  he  was  called  upon,  in  an 
affair  which  nearly  affected  obedience  to  the  Divine 
Majesty  and  to  the  Catholic  Church,  and  which 
the  Pope  had  greatly  at  heart,  as  being  of  the 
highest  importance,  to  give  to  the  bearer  of  this 
letter  the  same  faith  as  though  His  Holiness  were 
present  conversing  with  him.'      Manrique  claimed 
in  the  Pope's  name  the  delivering  over  of  Carne- 
secchi into  the  hands  of  the  I  nquisition.    The  Duke 
made  his  friend  and  guest  rise  from  the  table  and 
surrender  himself  on  the  spot  to  the  Papal  mes- 
senger.    And  he  abjectly  added,  that,  ^had  His 
Holiness— which  God  forefend— called  upon  him 
to  surrender  his  own  son  for  the  same  motive,  he 
would  not  have  hesitated  one  moment  to  have  him 
bound  and  surrendered.' 

Carnesecchi  found  opportunity  before  his  incar- 
ceration in  Florence  to  give  orders  to  his  house- 
hold to  get  all  his  suspected  books,  by  Luther,  by 
Peter  Martyr,  by  Calvin,  together  with  Flaminio's 
Apology  for  The  Benefit  of  Christ,  out  of  the 
way.  Whilst  being  transported  to  Rome,  he  wrote 
that  they  should  be  thrown  into  a  well.  It  seems 
that  the  only  suspected  books  found  were  the 
Apology  and  a  manuscript  in  quarto  of  twenty-four 
sheets,  which  had  been  dedicated  to  the  Duchess 


78 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI. 


THE  FINAL  TRIAL, 


79 


Giulia  Gonzaga,  entitled,  Meditatmis  and  Prayers 
upon  St,  PauPs  Epistle  to  the  Rmnans.  Carne- 
^ecchi  at  his  examination  of  March  7th,  1567, 
declared  it  to  be  a  work  of  Marcantonio  Flaminio. 
It  is  also  possible  that  the  extraordinarily  volumi- 
nous correspondence  of  Carnesecchi  with  the 
Duchess  may  after  her  death  have  been  returned 
to  him  by  her  relatives,  and  have  subsequently 
been  found  in  his  dwelling  by  the  Inquisition.  Any- 
how, these  letters  furnished  the  leading  evidence 
which  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  availed  itself 
of  to  his  condemnation. 

'  The  Master  of  the  Sacred  Apostolic  Palace ' 
led  his  prisoner  to  Rome,  where  he  was  lodged  in 
the  prison  of  the  Holy  Office,  The  first  examina- 
tion was  held  on  July  13th,  1566,^  upon  which  there 
followed  an  interminable  series  of  hearings,  in  the 
highest  degree  fatiguing  and  galling.  Moreover, 
the  rack  was  employed  upon  Carnesecchi ;  and  his 
judges  made  it  a  subject  of  special  reproach  that  he, 
under  torture — sotto  resamine  rigoroso — remained 
obstinate,  and  expressed  himself  unintelligibly. 

The  Duke  of  Florence,  who  now  earnestly 
exerted  himself  upon  behalf  of  the  man  whom  he 
had  so  basely  surrendered,  received  as  reply  to  his 
intercession  for  mercy,  that  the  Pope,  since  the 
prisoner  was  in  the  hands  of  the  Inquisition,  could 

'There  were  other  exammations  prior  to  that  of  July  13th. 
Manzoni,  in  his  preface  to  the  Estratto,  alludes  to  them. 


no  longer  do  anything  himself  for  him.  Carne- 
secchi wrote  from  his  dungeon  to  Morone,  to  the 
Cardinal  of  Trent,  to  the  Abbot  of  San  Soluto,  to 
Bartholomeo  Concino,  that  he  was  being  tortured  ; 
that  his  judges  held  him  to  be  insincere  :  '  They 
would  fain  have  me  say  of  the  living  and  of  the 
dead  things  which  1  do  not  know,  and  which  they 
would  so  fain  hear.'  These  letters  were  seized, 
and  served  with  the  judges  of  that  tribunal  but  to 
enhance  Carnesecchi's  guilt. 

These  investigations  were  carried  on  through 
fifteen  months'  imprisonment     Sentence  was  de- 
livered by  the  tribunal  of  the  Inquisition  on  August 
1 6th,    1567,  and  was  published  to  the  world  on 
September   21st,  in  Santa  Maria  sopra  Minerva, 
when  the  prisoner  was  handed  over  to  *  the  secular 
arml  and  was  then  led  away  to  the  most  terrible 
prison  in  Rome,  to  the  Tor  di  Nona,  situate  near 
the  Ponte  St.  Angelo,  where  isolated  cells  were 
rendered   pestilential   and   disgusting   by   having 
putrid  water  in  them,  from  which  he  was  only  to 
be  delivered  by  death,  inflicted  with  the  infamy  of 
a  public  execution. 

But  the  articles  of  faith,  the  acceptance  of  which 
Rome  declared  to  be  a  crime  worthy  of  death, 
deserve  to  be  published  throughout  the  world.  A 
Church  which  visits  such  things  with  death  at  the 
stake  has  not  condemned  the  heretic,  but  it  has 
condemned  itself.     Carnesecchi  was  found  guilty 


8o 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI, 


upon  thirty- four  points  of  accusation  ;  and  our 
readers  may  insist  that  no  one  of  them  be  withheld 
from  their  knowledge.  The  version  given  here 
coincides  with  that  found  in  Manzoni's  Estratto, 
in  Italian,  and  with  that  given  by  Schelhorn,  in 
Latin. 

'That  thou,  from  the  year  1540,  and  in  suc- 
ceeding years,  hast  held  and  believed  the  following 
propositions,  which  are  severally  heretical,  erron- 
eous, rash,  and  scandalous  : — 

*  1.  Justification  by  faith  alone,  and  that  our  works  have  no 
part  in  it ;  according  to  Luther's,  the  heresiarch's,  teaching,  in 
connection  with  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians. 

'  2.  The  certainty  of  grace  and  of  salvation,  according  to  the 
same  Luther. 

'  3.  That  our  works  are  not  essential  to  salvation,  which  is 
to  be  obtained  through  faith  ;  but  that  the  justified  man  would 
inevitably  perform  them  whenever  he  should  find  time  and 
opportunity. 

*  4.  And,  consequently,  that  the  said  good  works  could  not 
merit  everlasting  life  ;  but  would  indeed  be  rewarded  with  a 
higher  degree  of  glory  after  the  general  resurrection. 

*  5.  Thou  hast  held  concerning  Fasts,  that  it  is  not  a  mortal 
sin  not  to  observe  them,  unless  this  omission  should  arise  from 
contempt ;  but  that  they  are  useful  for  mortification  only. 

*  6.  That  we  have  by  nature  a  free  will  to  do  evil ;  and,  before 
grace,  only  to  commit  sin. 

*  7.  That  it  is  not  possible  to  keep  the  commandments  in 
the  Decalogue,  and  especially  the  first  two,  and  the  last, 
*'Thoushalt  not  lust  after,"  without  the  most  effectual  influence 
of  the  grace  of  God,  and  without  a  great  abundance  of  faith 
and  of   the   Spirit,   which   is   found   but   in    few;    and    the 


THE  ARTICLES  OF  CONDEMNATION, 


81 


case  is  not  so  with  every  ordinary  Christian,  but  with  the 
perfect,  such  as  the  holy  Martyrs  and  Doctors  of  the  Church 
have  been. 

<  8.  That  we  ought  not  to  believe  anything  save  that  which 
is  the  word  of  God  expressed  in  Holy  Scripture. 

*  9.  That  not  all  General  Councils  are  assembled  in  the  Holy 
Ghost,  and  therefore  that  we  should  not  have  faith  in  the 
decisions  of  them  all ;  exercising  a  critical  judgment  as  to  which 
may  be  those  assembled  in  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  questioning 
whether  the  power  to  convoke  them  belonged  to  the  Emperor  or 
to  the  Pope,  or  to  others. 

*  10.  Thou  hast  been  undecided  respecting  the  number  of  the 
Sacraments,  having  heard  that  Calvin  held  two, namely.  Baptism 
and  the  ''  Supper  "  (as  thou  art  wont  sometimes  to  call  the  most 
Holy  Eucharist) ;  and  that  Luther  added  to  them  Orders,  which 
thou  termest ''  the  Imposition  of  Hands." 

<  1 1.  Thou  hast  in  like  manner  been  uncertain  as  to  whether 
the  Sacrament  of  Confirmation  was  instituted  by  Christ  or  by 
the  Church,  holding  that  it  was  the  ratification  of  the  promises 
made  in  Baptism. 

<  12.  That  Sacramental  Confession  was  not  established  by 
Divine  command,  nor  appointed  by  Christ ;  and  that  it  cannot 
be  proved  by  Scripture  ;  and  that  none  was  indispensable  except 
that  which  is  made  to  God  ;  and  therefore  that  it  was  left  at  the 
option  of  a  Christian  to  go,  or  not  to  go,  to  confess  ;  although 
it  might  be  beneficial  and  consolatory  to  the  penitent,  as  to  the 
comfort  which  he  might  derive  from  absolution,  and  as  to  the 
advice  and  the  remedies  which  he  might  receive ;  and  such  was 
thy  opinion  up  to  the  time  when  thou  didst  acknowledge  thy 
delinquency  before  this  tribunal. 

*  13.  Thou  hast  held  that  the  satisfaction  which  consists  of 
penitential  works,  imposed  by  priests  upon  those  who  are  con- 
trite was  not  necessary  (upon  the  presumption  that  it  took  the 
place  of  the  merit  of  Christ,  as  sufficient  to  atone  for  the  sins 
of  the  whole  worid) ;  but  that  such  works  were  good  for  the 
purposes  of  mortifying  the  flesh,  and  giving  life  to  the  spirit. 


82 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHI, 


*  14.  That  Indulgences  were  not  founded  on  Holy  Scrip- 
ture, but  were  invented  by  the  Popes  ;  and  were  not  available 
except  for  the  living,  as  to  the  penances  imposed  on  them  by 
the  Pope,  or  by  other  priests. 

*i5.  Thou  hast  maintained  the  uncertainty  of  Purgatory, 
concerning  which  thou  hast  entertained  strong  doubts,  or  rather 
hast  actually  held,  that  it  has  no  real  existence  after  the.'present 
life  ;  but  that  the  blood  of  Christ  was  the  purgatory  for  our 
sins — not  having  become  convinced  by  the  places  of  Holy 
Scripture  which  are  cited  in  support  of  this  truth,  up  to  the 
period  of  thy  aforesaid  confession. 

*  16.  Thou  hast  considered  as  apocryphal  the  Book  of  the 
Maccabees,  in  which  mention  is  made  of  prayers  for  the  dead. 

*  1 7.  That  in  the  most  holy  Sacrament  of  the  Eucharist 
the  substance  of  bread  remained,  while  there  was  also  in  it  the 
presence  of  the  Body  of  Christ,  without  Transubstantiation 
having  taken  place,  according  to  the  opinion  of  Luther,  to 
which  thou  hast  adhered  since  the  year  1543  ;  although  some- 
times thou  wast  pleased  with,  and  favourable  to,  the  heresy  of 
Calvin ;  to  which  also  thou  gavest  attention,  and  discussing 
which  with  others,  thou  hast  reasoned  as  well  as  written. 

*  18.  Thou  hast  held  and  believed  that^it  was  better  that 
the  laity  should  communicate  in  both  kinds  than  in  one. 

*  19.  That  the  most  holy  Sacrifice  of  the  Mass  was  not 
truly  propitiatory,  except  so  far  as  it  excites  in  us  the  remem- 
brance of  the  passion  of  Christ,  and  consequently  that  faith  by 
which  the  forgiveness  of  sins  is  obtained. 

*  20.  That  the  Pope  possessed  supremacy  over  other 
Bishops,  not  in  the  way  of  jurisdiction,  but  simply  by  pre- 
eminence ;  and  this  thou  hast  for  some  time  believed. 

*2i.  And  thus  that  the  Pope  was  only  Bishop  of  Rome, 
and  that  he  had  no  ascendency  over  other  Churches,  beyond 
what  might  be  conceded  by  the  world,  from  respect  to  the  See 
of  Peter ;  as  also  on  account  of  the  dignity  and  greatness  of 


THE  ARTICLES  OF  CONDEMNATION, 


S3 


Rome ;  and  because  that  city  had  been  ennobled  by  the  blood 
of  so  many  thousands  of  martyrs. 

*  22.  That  the  Roman  Pontiffs  had  unjustly  claimed  for 
themselves,  in  sundry  matters,  more  authority  than  they  had 
received  from  God  ;  and  especially  with  regard  to  Indulgences 
and  predominance  over  other  Churches. 

*23.  And  thou  hast  for  a  certain  period  suspected  that  the 
succession  of  the  Roman  Pontiffs  terminated  with  the  Apostle- 
ship  of  St.  Peter. 

*  24.  Thou  hast  blamed  several  Orders  and  Rules  of 
Monks  and  Friars  (as  those  of  St.  Benedict,  and  others),  for 
leading  an  idle  and  useless  life,  and  for  being  persons  who  had 
as  it  were  been  "  born  to  consume  the  fruits  of  the  earth  ; '(  and 
thou  foundest  fault  with  some  fraternities  of  Mendicants  also, 
and  their  bags ;  saying  such  things  as  that,  "  they  took  the 
bread  out  of  the  hand  of  the  poor  ; "  and  that  **  they  would  do 
better  to  work  with  their  own  hands,  and  live  by  the  sweat  of 
their  brows." 

*25.  And  although  thou  hast  approved  of  the  zeal  of  those 
monks  who  labour  hard  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Lord,  preaching 
and  watching  over  the  salvation  of  their  neighbours,  thou  hast, 
nevertheless,  held  that  their  zeal  was  not  "  according  to  know- 
ledge ; "  as  it  appeared  to  thee  that  works  were  put  forward  too 
prominently  in  their  preaching. 

*  26.  With  respect  to  celibacy,  thou  hast  conceived  that  it 
would  be  better  to  restore  wives  to  priests  than  to  have  deprived 
them  of  them. 

*  27.  That  to  the  vow  of  single  life  members  of  the  Religious 
Orders  could  not,  and  should  not,  bind  themselves  ;  and  that  it 
would  be  inexpedient  for  them  to  do  so  ;  chastity  and  conti- 
nence being  gifts  of  God  ;  and  on  this  account  that  they  cannot 
be  promised,  except  by  those  who  by  long  experience  have 
been  enabled  to  ascertain  that  they  have  received  such  a  faculty 
from  Him  ;  and  for  this  reason  thou  didst  advise  and  encourage 


[•■•?- 


84 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


a  Benedictine  monk  (equally  heretical,  and  thy  accomplice), 
who  was  disposed  to  desert  his  Order,  to 'leave  it. 

'  28.  And  thou  hast  had  the  same  opinion  relative  to  Nuns 
and  Virgins  who  devote  themselves  to  God  ;  and  such  has  also 
been  thy  judgment  with  regard  to  the  mere  vow  of  permanent 
continence. 

*  29.  Thou  hast  questioned  whether  Pilgrimages  and  visits  to 
churches,  undertaken  spontaneously,  or  in  consequence  of  vows, 
are  suitable  for  all  kinds  of  persons  ;  nay,  rather  thou  hast  said 
that  these  vows  respecting  Pilgrimage  are  worthless  to  every 
one  without  exception. 

*  ;o.  That  all  sorts  of  food,  without  any  choice,  may  be 
eaten,  according  to  the  conscience  of  him  who  partakes  of  them, 
and  thou  hast  acted  upon  this  supposition; 

*  31.  And  that  it  would  not  be  a  mortal  sin  to  disregard  the 
observance  of  days  and  seasons  of  restraint  by  making  use  of 
forbidden  kinds  of  food  ;  but  that  it  would  be  a  greater  or  less 
offence  in  proportion  to  the  scandal  thereby  occasioned,  and 
according  to  the  accusing  or  excusing  of  one's  own  conscience. 

*32.  That  it  is  not  a  sin  to  keep  or  to  read  heretical  or 
prohibited  books  ;  but  a  matter  of  indifference,  and  one  to  be 
decided  by  the  conscience  of  him  who  possesses  them,  notwith- 
standing the  interdict  of  the  Holy  Church. 

*33-  From  the  year  1543  until  1545,  and  from  1557  till 
i559>  thou  hast  held  that,  Christ  being  the  only  Mediator 
between  God  and  men,  it  was  unnecessary  to  pray  to  the  saints  ; 
and  for  some  time  thou  hast  not  done  so. 

*  34.  And,  lastly,  thou  hast  believed  all  the  errors  and 
heresies  comprised  in  the  said  book  Of  the  Benefit  of  Christy  as 
well  as  the  false  doctrine  and  principles  taught  by  the  said 
JuXn  Valdi^s,  thy  master.* 

These  were  the  articles  of  faith,  for  holding  of 
which  Carnesecchi  was  condemned  to  death.  How 
will  the  Lord  of  the  Church  have  judged  His 


THE  SENTENCE.  ^S 

servant,  who  dared,  as  His  Vicar  upon  earth,  to 
condemn  doctrines  which  may  almost  all  of  them 
be  traced  back  as  utterances  of  Christ  or  of  His 
Apostles  ?  Nevertheless,  the  wisdom  and  moder- 
ation with  which  Carnesecchi  must  have  spoken 
upon  all  questionable  points  are  admirable,  and  it 
seems  marvellous  that  they  did  not  blot  out  a 
tribunal  so  malevolent.  To  say  anything  more 
upon  this  judgment  of  the  'holy'    Inquisition  is 

unnecessary. 

The  no  less  hypocritical  sentence  itself  we  here 

give  verbatim : — 

*  Taking  into  consideration  the  numerous  deceptions  prac- 
tised  upon  the  Holy  Church,  and  the  very  many  perjuries, 
inconstancies,  fluctuations,   and   vacillations,  and  also  thine 
inconsistencies  and  instability,  how  hard  it  has  been  for  thee  to 
confess  the  truth,  and  the  impenitence  which  thou  hast  by  many 
tokens  manifested,  and,  amongst  others,  by  writing  to  and  coun- 
selling heretics  even  whilst  in  prison,  and,  as  has  been  stated, 
thine  inveterate  career  in  error  and  in  intercourse  with  heretics, 
and  thine  incorrigibility,  since,  on  three  other  occasions  besides 
this,  sentence  has  been  passed  on  thee  and  upon  thy  cause, 
and  that  thou  hast  in  reference  to  them  deluded  and  deceived 
the  Holy  Ofiice  ;  and  that  neither  hast  thou,  after  the  two  above- 
mentioned  absolutions,  either  amended  or  corrected  thyself: 
taking  which  into  consideration,  the  Holy  Ol^ce  can  no  longer 
trust  thee,  or  have  assurance  that  thou  hast  truly  and  sincerely 
repented,  or  may  expect  any  amelioration  on  thy  part ; 

» For  this  reason,  we  accordingly  declare  and  adjudge  that 
thou  art  an  impenitent  heretic,  a  dissembling  convert,  and 
debased  ;  and  that  by  the  very  law  thou  art  deprived,  and,  so 
far  as  it  is  necessary,  we  do  deprive  thee  anew,  of  every  rank, 
privilege,  and  eminent  position ;  and  of  thy  preferments,  emolu- 
ments,  and  occupations,  ecclesiastical  and  secular,  whatsoever 


86 


PIETRO  CARNESECCHL 


they  may  be,  and  howsoever  designated ;  and  that  they  have 
ceased  to  be  enjoyed  by  thee  from  the  date  of  thy  heresies ; 
and  that  thenceforward  thou  wast  incapable  of  obtaining  them. 
And  we  condemn  thee  to  the  forfeiture  of  all  thy  property, 
personal  and  real,  and  of  all  consequent  rights  and  claims^ 
agreeably  to  the  appointment  of  the  sacred  canon ;  to  be 
applied,  as  we  do  apply  it,  to  the  purpose  to  which  it  should  be 
justly  assigned. 

*  And,  as  one  irreclaimable,  without  remorse,  and  whose 
change  of  mind  has  only  been  fictitious,  we  in  like  manner 
pronounce  and  ordain,  that  thou  oughtest  to  be  degraded,  as  we 
direct,  that  thou  be  actually  degraded,  from  the  Orders 
which  thou  hast  attained.  And,  as  a  person  thus  degraded, 
henceforward,  as  well  now  as  previously,  we  expel  thee  as  an 
unprofitable  branch  from  our  Ecclesiastical  Court,  and  from  the 
safeguard  of  our  Holy  Church,  and  we  surrender  and  deliver 
thee  up  to  the  §ecular  Court ;  that  is,  to  your  Lordship  the 
Governor  of  Rome,  that  you  may  take  him  under  your  jurisdic 
tion  \  and  that  he  may  be  subject  to  your  decision  ;  so  as  to  be 
punished  with  due  chastisement — beseeching  you,  however,  as 
we  do  earnestly  beseech  you,  so  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  your 
sentence  in  respect  to  his  body,  that  there  may  be  no  danger 
either  of  death  or  of  shedding  of  blood. 

*  So  we.   Cardinals  Inquisitors-General,    whose  names    are 
hereunder  written,  decree. 

*  Bernardino  di  Trani. 

*  SciPoiNE  DI  Pisa. 

*  Francesco  Pacheco. 

'  Giovanni  Francesco  di  Gambara.* 

For  a  month  and  more  had  Carnesecchi  to  await 
his  death,  in  that  horrible  prison,  the  Tor  di  Nona, 
whither  he  was  now  transported.  Once  more  did 
the  Duke  Cosimo  of  Florence  seek  to  save  his 
former  friend.    He  besought  the  Pope  to  be  mer- 


THE  MARTYRDOM, 


87 


ciful  ;  and  execution  was  deferred.  A  Capuchin 
monk  visited  the  prisoner  in  his  cell,  and  announced 
to  "him  that  he  might  save  his  life  if  he  would  now 
adopt  the  faith  of  the  Romish  Church.  But  the 
monk  himself  was  well  nigh  converted  by  Carne- 
secchi's  spirited  testimonies  to  his  faith,  and  he 
returned  to  the  person  who  had  sent  him,  having 
achieved  nothing. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  October  3rd,  1567,  a 
scaffold  was  erected  on  the  Ponte  St.  Angelo.  He 
who  had  been  at  one  time  Papal  Protonotary,  and 
who  by  birth  was  a  member  of  a  patrician  family, 
was  not  to  be  hanged,  but  beheaded  ;  his  body  was 
then  to  be  committed  to  the  flames. 

Carnesecchi  retained  his  composure  and  strength 
of  faith  until  the  last  moment.  They  dressed  him 
in  a  sanbenito^  an  heretical  garb,  painted  over  with 
flames  and  devils  ;  but  he  insisted  that  he  would 
at  least  appear  in  clean  linen.  He  wore  a  white 
shirt,  he  had  a  new  pair  of  gloves,  and  a  white 
handkerchief  in  his  hand. 

His  noble  head  fell,  whilst  he  was  the  object  of 
the  execrations  and  curses  of  those  who  held  them- 
selves to  be  mQmberp  of  tl^t-  ^^^^  vMz\i  exclu- 
sively arrogates*  SaiVkiirf  Co  iterft/wJio  are  within 
its  pale.  Aftdii-itlirisJ:  ifhK'.SLsixe^'W  which  his 
body  was  re^u^eS.^were' casf  mto  the  Tiber,  his 
soul  was  with  his  iLortL*  ?.*  fan  fie  Vas  faithful  unto 
deathj  and  received  the  crown  of  life. 


